University of Newcastle has launched the next phase of its Honeysuckle campus with plans for a nine-storey student accommodation tower.
The university has lodged a development application with City of Newcastle for enabling works on a site beside the Q Building facing Worth Place.
Documents in the application say the building will include ground-floor retail and eight levels of student accommodation with 480 beds.
The development application marks the second stage of the university's plans for the Honeysuckle precinct after it bought the two-hectare site from the state government in 2018.
The Q Building, on the corner of Worth Place and Honeysuckle Drive, opened in 2021.
Vice-chancellor Dr Alex Zelinsky said on Tuesday that the development would help address the "critical shortage of student accommodation and add to the revitalisation of the Newcastle CBD".
"In line with our Honeysuckle precinct master plan, we're pleased to have begun planning on the second stage of development at the site, a proposed student accommodation building on the western edge of the precinct," he said in a statement.
"We continue to see strong demand for accommodation among our students."
He said the university was in the initial planning phase of the student accommodation project and hoped to start community engagement at the end of the year.
Private student accommodation developer Linkcity lodged plans in July for a building on the site of the Cambridge Hotel in Newcastle West which includes 560 student beds over 21 floors.
The university development application includes shifting part of the Wright Lane car park, demolishing an electrical substation and services trenching in Wright Lane and Civic Lane.
The accommodation building will be the subject of a later application.
The university has an approved master plan for the precinct which includes three buildings on Honeysuckle Drive and four on Civic Lane.
It also owns a building on Hunter Street which will be demolished to open a pedestrian link from the Honeysuckle campus to the NUspace building.
The loss of revenue from overseas students during the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted the university's plans for the precinct, but the project appears to be back on course.
Former Hunter Development Corporation chief executive Michael Cassel said in 2018 that the university campus would invigorate the inner-city.
"People will look back and say this is where it all started to really change ... this is what will bring the life back to the city," he said at the time.
"This will end up with thousands of students wandering around here, eating lunches, studying and engaging with the community."
