NT Independent by David Wood | Aug 13, 2025 | Business, News,
Costings for two different versions of the new Darwin Council civic centre were given to council but never made public in the months before it put out an expression of interest for the building, that led to a partnership with developer DCOH to build the controversial 21-story hybrid civic centre-private office tower.
In mid-November last year, the council announced the new 21-storey office tower, which it has since said would cost $157 million – including demolition of the existing civic centre and rehabilitation of the site – with the council to contribute $77 million and developer DCOH to spend $80 million.
But it never disclosed the two alternative options – one of which could have possibly saved ratepayers millions – and raises questions about the costs for all aspects of the approved project.
The council will own 51 per cent of the new joint building once complete, including 410 of the 460 car parks, but it has never answered the NT Independent’s questions about whether the developer is paying for its part of the land, how much it is paying for its share of the car parks, and whether it is paying the developers shortfall levy for the car parks it is required to provide as part of the new building but is not.
Lord Mayor Kon Vatskalis has previously said a new civic centre is necessary because of the prohibitive cost of maintaining the old building and claimed going into partnership with DCOH would make the building cheaper for council, but council did not make the public aware of the details of the two standalone proposals it rejected.
While the NT Independent has obtained the broken down costs of the two rejected options, it is difficult to directly compare it to the other proposals because there has never been a construction cost breakdown to clarify what the $157 million covers for the approved project.
Council did not respond to a request to release the projected cost breakdown of the building under construction into site work categories including earthworks, footpaths, fencing and gates, landscaping, public art, fixed furniture, along with site services, works outside the property boundary, consultancy and authority fees and project contingency.
The council is using the entirety of its collected developers shortfall levy and the Darwin Central Business District levy on the car parking component of the building, which could be a breach of the NT Planning Act, and the Local Government Act, and was part of the basis for a now-abandoned Federal Court challenge. The current project also contradicts council’s legally-mandated plan to build standalone multi-storey car parks with the money.
It is also using $17 million from the sale of its Cavanagh St public car park on the construction of the new civic centre.
In a previous ambiguous statement to the NT News, Mr Vatskalis said, “We put our money and they [DCOH] bought half of the property” which appeared to indicate the developer may have paid something for the land, but he added that “we maintain 51 per cent ownership so we’re not bound to DCOH”, which appears to mean he was referring to the company paying for half of the building, not buying the land.
He has refused to explain.
The Lord Mayor told ABC Radio Darwin in January that the arrangement with DCOH was a “good deal”.
“We found out that having someone on top of us is good for us. Good for the developer too, but good for us, because guess what, these 10-storeys will continually pay rates to the council.” Mr Vatskalis said.
“Why should council not operate like a business? Make a profit for their rate base? Rather than actually slug the rate base every year with increased rates.”
He did not specify how much DCOH would pay in annual rates.
The first proposal
According to documents obtained by the NT Independent, in July 2023 the council was provided a costing of $153 million for the first version of a new standalone civic centre, with a 9,779 square metre floor area and a 450-space underground car park.
The existing council civic centre floor area is about 5,000 sqm.
The 21-storey tower the council has decided to go with, that is estimated to cost only $4 million more, is around 18,000 sqm with 460 car parks incorporated into the building but not underground.
The council had previously told the NT Independent to use a construction cost indicator calculator on the website of the international property and construction consultancy Rider Levett Bucknall to work out how much each car park should cost.
It gives a very broad range of cost, showing the 450-bay underground car park in the first proposal would cost somewhere between $16 million and $28 million more than a 460-bay car in the selected proposal.
The total cost of the first proposal included $67 million for the civic centre construction component, $45 million for the underground car park and then $41 million in other costs including knocking down the old building and removing the asbestos, landscaping, public art, earthworks and services provision, roadworks and other works outside the property boundary, consultants and authority fees, IT and AV equipment, and a project contingency of close to $14 million.
The second proposal
A month after receiving the first proposal, council was given the costing for a scaled-back version in August 2023, which had a floor area of about 6,000 sqm – roughly 1,000 sqm more than the existing civic centre building – but roughly the same as the building under construction. However, it was to only have 300 car parks, while council will own 410 of the 460 car parks in its new building.
The total cost for that option was $91 million, which included $41 million for the civic centre building construction component, $6 million for the 300 car parks, and project contingency of $8.2 million.
This compares to the $77 million it is spending on the building under construction, but the rejected option came with 110 less council-owned car parks. Council is not paying for the car parks itself, with the money from the levies collected from city businesses and developers.
Unexplained is the $20 million cost for works outside the property on the second proposal, with that money earmarked to be spent on roadworks, mains services, and other things. However, in the costings for the first, larger building, that cost was only listed at $9 million.
As council will not provide the breakdown of costs for the current DCOH construction, it is unclear whether all the costs included in the two rejected building options are included in the $157 million public price tag.
However, the $6 million cost the council put on the 300 car parks – $20,000 per bay – is at odds with its claims it is now spending $30 million to create 410 car parks in the DCOH building, which is more than $70,000 per space, while it is unclear if the car parks in the other options were surface-level car parks, separate to the new building.
DCOH only company considered Documents also show that DCOH was the only company that responded to the expression of interest, which resulted in the elected members voting to build the hybrid civic-centre private office tower which has caused some controversy because of the height and nearby sensitive historical parkland areas of the city.
The NT Independent put questions to Darwin Council, the Lord Mayor, and all of the councillors about why the first two options were rejected, why they were not made public, and what they saw as the benefit of the proposal with DCOH, but there was no response.
In now discontinued legal action, lawyers acting for residents Geoff and Kerry Nourse and others, alleged the agreement between the council and DCOH was invalid because councillors acted in contravention of the legislation.
Specifically, it was alleged that matters were improperly declared confidential to prevent public scrutiny of the redevelopment, including notices of meetings and business papers required to be published under Section 93 of the Local Government Act, meetings required to be open to the public under Section 99 of the Local Government Act, and minutes of meetings required to be published under Section 102 of the Local Government Act.
Darwin Council did not respond to an NT Independent request for comment about the legal action ending, but an un-named spokesperson was cited in the NT News saying the council was pleased the action was ended and that it maintained the allegations made about improper decision-making were without basis.