Locating one of the largest health precincts in the Southern Hemisphere next to South Australia’s redeveloped convention centre is helping to position the city of Adelaide as a medical conference capital.
The fourth major building in the Adelaide BioMed City precinct – The University of South Australia’s Centre for Cancer Biology – is set to open this month while the $240 million SAHMRI 2 building, featuring the Southern Hemisphere’s first Proton Therapy Unit, is expected to open in 2020.
Their presence in the northwest corner of the Adelaide CBD follows the opening of the eye-catching South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute (SAHMRI), pictured below, in late 2013 and the completion of the new Royal Adelaide Hospital and University of Adelaide Health and Medical Sciences building in 2017.
Adelaide is becoming a medical conference capital
The transformation of the former rail yards on North Terrace has coincided with the $397 million redevelopment of the neighbouring Adelaide Convention Centre, which was completed in August 2017.
The centre became Australia’s first convention centre when it opened in 1987. The recent redevelopment has significantly increased its size, allowing it to bid for major conferences it previously couldn’t accommodate.
The centrepiece of the Adelaide Convention Centre revamp is a state-of-the-art 3000sq m Plenary Hall. With a 3500-seat capacity, the hall can be divided into more than 15 configurations to accommodate a wide range of conferences, exhibitions, banquets and other events.
Medical conferences now account for about a third of the centre’s business and it has booked over a dozen specifically medical conferences with more than 1000 delegates each to be held in the next two years.
These include the 38th Australian Dental Congress in May 2019, which could welcome up to 4000 delegates, and the Cardiac Society of Australia and New Zealand in August 2019. The CSANZ event will also be held at the centre in 2021 and 2023.
