Magill campus update on trees and open land
With work starting at the former Uni of SA Magill campus next year, the latest community feedback to a development plan on site is revealed. See the map.
Third Creek and a historic building at Adelaide University’s Magill Campus will be preserved in its upcoming redevelopment, the housing minister said today ahead of first works starting next year.
Housing Minister Nick Champion was joined by community advocates Denise MacGregor and Charlotte Reimer from Magill Matters – a community group who were once staunch opponents of past plans for the site – to give an update and release a report collating community feedback.
Now, the two announced the community group was “very, very happy” with government engagement.
Champion released a new report today collating community feedback that he said proved the plans were “broadly consistent with what the community wants”.
The report showed most of the community that participated in the survey from April to June 2026 largely supported open green space, 30 per cent tree canopy and an aged care facility on the site.
But about 30 per cent of respondents still opposed the site being used for 100 homes.
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Some commenters said they wanted to see affordable housing options for first home buyers, while others said they wanted no or less homes on the site, one commenting, “leave it how it is”.
Housing is slated for a three-hectare parcel of land east of St Bernard’s Road, away from the main campus, where 100 homes no taller than five storeys would be built with work starting in 2027.
The sporting ovals are also going to stay, Champion said.
“We’ve got a big piece of green space in the oval, and it’s surrounded in trees and for that reason, the community were anxious that housing might be built on it,” Champion said.
“An oval is actually a big community asset; they’re expensive to put in, and so we were going to destroy a lot of value in an oval, and face sort of community uproar about cutting down trees.
“So in the end, it didn’t actually make a lot of sense to put housing there; where we’ve ended up is a good balance.”
Adelaide University was expected to leave the main 11-hectare campus on the other side of the road by 2033 when its lease ends, with the next stage of development works to then begin.
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Over the next decade as plans progress at Magill campus, the Magill Matters group want to see as many trees as possible protected, including 300-year-old native gum trees.
The government has said it would prioritise keeping existing trees and vegetation, especially around the Third Creek Corridor and that Murray House, a local heritage-listed building, was there to stay.
Murray House, which was built in 1884, was the residence of SA pastoralist AB Murray and his son GJR Murray, who was the first colonial-born Judge and Chief Justice of SA’s Supreme Court. It will be kept for adaptive reuse on the site.
Magill Matters advocate Charlotte Reimer said the group also wanted to see the building that houses the current library and café space kept and reused.
Champion said there would be “a debate about which buildings are kept and which buildings aren’t, and that will be something that happens closer to 2032-33”.
Renewal SA bought Magill campus and the two smaller parcels of land to the east of St Bernard’s Road in 2023 for $64.5 million as part of the government’s funding package to support the merger of the University of Adelaide and UniSA.
The cost of the Magill redevelopment project has not yet been revealed, with the Premier and housing minister announcing earlier this year that the site would have aged care and housing.
“The university has been a good partner in all of this; they’re clearly an important economic generator for the state, but their future is probably based in the city,” Champion said.
“That’s where it makes sense to have a university; we’re going to be a university town, and it makes sense to concentrate that economic value in the CBD.”
The full plans so far and community engagement report are available on the Renewal SA website.
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