Activate Orange - a new blue-print for Orange’s economic future.
Orange City’s ActivateOrange Strategic Vision focuses on how the city will operate and support economic and employment growth, over the next 20 years. This vision is the first stage of a once-in-a-lifetime regional transformation that will activate Orange’s endowments and competitive advantages, enabling it to be the powerhouse of inland NSW.
The ActivateOrange Strategic Vision aligns with the NSW Government’s Economic Vision for NSW and builds on the strategies identified in the Regional Economic Development Strategy (REDS) that was undertaken by AgEcon Plus Consulting in 2018 for the Functional Economic Region of Orange, Blayney and Cabonne.
For more information visit > Activate Orange
LIFE SCIENCE PRECINCT
The new Orange Life Science Precinct will incorporate the existing hospital site, the new private hospital, the Department of Primary Industries’ agribusiness accelerator (the GATE), education and research facilities and Clinical Trials Unit. These assets will be used to leverage investment attraction for associated developments, industrial manufacturing and services companies.
Orange City Council has lodged an expression of interest with the NSW Government to have the Life Sciences Precinct designated as a Special Activation Zone. Special Activation Zone designation will ensure that potential investors into the zone will benefit from a coordinated approach to land use and infrastructure planning and have the best access to incentives announced under the State Government Regional NSW Investment Attraction Package.
Orange has a unique set of attributes to make its Life Sciences precinct - a diverse ecosystem of health services, educational facilities, research institutes, multinationals and innovative high growth SMEs clustered in an activation precinct.
Life Science Precinct Focus
- NSW Centre for Regional Health Education
- HealthTech
- Biopharmaceuticals
- Clinical Trials
- Health Supply Chain
- Rural Mental Health
For more information visit > Life Sciences Precinct Orange
Future City
Orange now services the professional, retail and services needs of Central NSW.
To address its emerging role as the service capital of Central NSW, and a major tourism destination, the city needs to change in order to accommodate increased traffic, people and jobs.
The FutureCity strategy also acknowledges that the Orange CBD has grown beyond its original footprint and now incorporates the old DPI building in Edward St and extends to incorporate the new DPI build on Anson St as well as all the professional businesses, health businesses, aged care services and other business operators in-between.
The FutureCity project embraces a fundamental change in the scope and neighbourhoods of the inner-city CBD. As the city has grown, there is a need to think about how to integrate the different ‘employment precincts’ that have emerged such as:
- the financial and professional services precinct around Robertson Park,
- the Health and Education Employment precinct between Byng St and Dalton St, and
- the new DPI building on Dalton St.
We need to ensure that future development is orderly and organised so that our core retail and hospitality precincts around Summer St continue to be supported to grow through increased professional and community foot traffic during the week, and visitor and community foot traffic on the weekends.
FutureCity will identify how we need to redesign traffic and people movements (freight, passenger, cyclist and pedestrian) to ensure people can move around the city easily on foot, bikes and cars, and that Orange continues to be the premier shopping and employment city in Central NSW. It will also look at what we need to do as a community to improve connections to public spaces across the wider city, and improve walking and cycle access from surrounding suburban areas.
FutureCity will also examine who uses the city, together with and their needs and expectations. For example, how can we support retention of young people, and attraction of students to our educational institutions, by growing the city nightlife and creating spaces and business opportunities for services targeted to this group? What do we need to do to make the city family-friendly during the day, and also at night? How can we better use key public spaces like Robertson Park for events and visitor attraction?
For more information visit > Future City Orange
CreativeActive
Over the last 10 years, Orange has worked to create and upgrade a range of cultural and recreational assets for residents and visitors to the City.
Major assets in the region include:
- The Orange Regional Gallery
- The Orange Regional Museum
- Orange Civic Theatre
- Orange City Library
Orange City Council is now working on a number of projects to further enhance the future liveability of the city and improve the visitor experience. This strategy will strengthen Orange’s reputation as the premier destination in Central NSW for sports, culture and healthy living.
The list of projects include:
- Mt Canobolas Mountain Bike Trails
- Redevelopment of the old Scout Camp into a Sports and Recreation Precinct for school and sporting groups
- Lake Canobolas enhancements
- The Orange Conservatorium and Planetarium
- Sir Jack Brabham Park
- The new Orange Sporting Precinct (with rectangular field and grandstand.)
These initiatives are not only critical to supporting a rapidly expanding population and to enabling community health, but also to continuing to diversify Orange’s tourism offerings.
Sustaining tourism, and encouraging return visits, relies on a continuous program of events, activities and locations that encourage visitors to return again and again. For example, regional and national sporting championships attract thousands of spectators, parents, participants and officials often for days at a time, filling our hotels, motels and other accommodation providers and directly injecting money into local retailers, cafes and restaurants. To continue to attract this type of tourism, Orange needs to invest in providing state-of-the-art sporting venues.
Similarly, our ability to host major art exhibitions, touring symphony orchestras and other musical performances and cultural events not only meets the needs of the local community, but also attracts new visitors into the economy to stay.
Our CreativeActive Orange program targets initiatives that reflect the demands of a rapidly growing community and workforce, as well as evidence-based projects that will support continued growth in visitor attraction that brings more people into the economy to spend.
For more information visit > Creative Active Orange
Industrial Freight Precinct
The South Orange Industrial and Freight Precinct initiative aims to expand the options for industrial and manufacturing sites adjacent to the Leewood Estate, 3km south of the CBD.
The project involves reactivating the disused Electrolux and former Orange saleyard sites.
Currently this industrial estate has a focus on heavy industry and mining services. The expanded precinct will increase the supply of industrial land that’s accessible to major highways, railway lines and air transport. (The Orange Airport is capable of landing up to A320 and B737 jets).
The expansion will allow Orange to meet continuing demand for industrial space for advanced manufacturing, mining and agri-tech, as well as accommodate the growing demand for advanced health and medical manufacturing that will result from the creation of the nearby Life Sciences Precinct.
The initiative is comprised of a series of staged road programs that will be delivered in conjunction with the Life Sciences Precinct, FutureCity initiatives and CreativeActive Orange (Sir Jack Brabham Sports Fields) programs.
The initiative will progressively enable the completion of the planned Orange Southern Feeder Road as part of Council’s strategy to create an orbital road network around the City, freeing up the city centre for modernisation and growth in professional, community and tourism services. It will also create enhanced access to the new industrial and life sciences precinct and sports fields.
The value of these stages is $33.63 million, which will extend the southern feeder road from the Mitchell Highway (East of Orange) to Pinnacle Road.
With an additional $16 million required to upgrade the link around Towac Park along Ploughmans Lane to Escort Way, the project is worth $49.63 million in total.
For more information visit > Industrial Freight Precinct Orange
Subscribe
Subscribe to our newsletter to receive the regions latest news and offers straight to your inbox.
Follow us
The Orange Region is situated within the traditional lands of the Wiradjuri Nation. We acknowledge the traditional custodianship of these lands, and pay our respect to the Wiradjuri people for their care and stewardship of these lands for more than 40,000 years and to the Elders of the Wiradjuri Nation past, present and future.
