Canberra Greek club set for mega redevelopment

The $146 million redevelopment of the Hellenic Club of Canberra has been approved by the ACT's Environment, Planning and Sustainable Development Directorate.

Designed by Fender Katsalidis and Oculus, the project will see a 12- and a 16-storey office building constructed on the site of the existing club in the town centre of Woden. The existing club building will be incorporated into the new development.

The hotel will have 151 rooms as well as conference facilities, restaurants, a guest space and a rooftop pool.

The project also includes a publicly accessible "agora" with hospitality, retail and recreation spaces; a central circulation space; an auditorium; and a health facility on the ground and first floors.

"The Hellenic Precinct is a visionary blueprint that reflects our Club's commitment to a vibrant and diversified future while preserving our roots in the Woden Town Centre," said Hellenic Club board president Andrew Satsias.

The Hellenic Club of Canberra first opened in 1979 and now has more than 50,000 members.

In March 2022, Satsias told the Greek Herald that the development was part of a strategy to generate new income in the face of declining support for poker machines.

"Part of that income diversification also includes our own site - changing it to meet the times. The Club's site is getting older and it's quite expensive to run. We're not proposing to knock it down but rather develop further on our land," he said. "We want it to be a new precinct."

The project will be developed in three stages. Construction is set to begin in early 2024.