The building will house the Department of Primary Industries, along with staff from other departments, including Premier and Cabinet and possibly the Office of Sport, which is currently located in Lords Place. 

DPI corporate service partner deputy secretary Shaun Smith said the building’s 700 staff looked forward to more modern ways of working, including collaboration spaces.

“You’ll have a traditional work point where someone will be able to sit at a desk, but there’ll be lots of spaces where they’ll be open, there’ll be whiteboards up on the wall and what we talk about as agile development, so lots of post-it notes, people coming together to solve problems as opposed to sitting there linearly and working through on a document,” he said.

“Bringing people together often solves problems a lot faster than doing things one by one.”

Verde Property will own and maintain the building with Orange-based staff, however the amount the company will pay for the site, located on Dalton, Anson and Prince streets, remains commercial in confidence.

Director Jody Gosling said earthworks would continue until construction started on February 4.

“It’s very much our niche, this size building, we have buildings range from 7000 and 11,500 square metres – this is 8500,” she said. 

She said the building would be finished to residential standards.

The keys will be handed over on July 31, 2020.

Minister for Primary Industries Niall Blair said the DPI had been the heart of Orange since the 1990s.

“Now we’re moving it to the heart of Orange,” he said. 

Receive our free newsletters delivered to your inbox, as well as breaking news alerts. Sign up below …