The former Longreach Pastoral College property will soon be for sale on the open market.
Two-and-a-half years after the Queensland government closed the gate on the Queensland Agriculture Training Colleges venue, it is planning to market the 17,511ha site via an open expressions of interest process.
Up to six different configurations of land and the onsite campus will be offered and are currently being finalised, to give buyers a number of different purchase options.
According to Agriculture Minister Mark Furner, both the price offered and the proposed community benefit from the acquisition and repurposing of the site will be taken into account when assessing tenders.
He said no opportunity would be missed in selling the property.
"That's why I have a strong emphasis on return to community.
"Some proponents have been closely associated with the Longreach area.
"That's why, when the Longreach council first showed interest, I thought that was good because it would keep the asset in the area.
"Seeing how well tourism is doing triggered my belief that there has to be a component in the sale of community benefit.
"We'll consider not only where a tenderer is from but what they'll do with the property."
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He expected to be able to announce the successful tender or tenders either at the end of this year or early next year, saying a 14-week assessment process would follow a six-week marketing campaign, to be undertaken by local agents.
"This will be a very well sought after package," Mr Furner said. "Since the decision to close and repurpose the college at the end of 2019, the government has had a variety of approaches from tourism, cattle and other sectors."
The Remote Area Planning and Development Board was given the opportunity to put forward a business proposal for an alternative use for the college, which the government rejected in October 2021 as not sustainable.
A month later, in November 2021, the Longreach Regional Council decided it was not in a position to acquire the property.
The former Emerald Agricultural College Blackwater property Berrigurra, covering 9285 hectares (22,943 acres) sold for $32.5m in 2021, which Mr Furner used as an example of how he expected the sale to be received.
Local property agents will be marketing the property because in Mr Furner's words, they would have their fingers on the pulse.
They would forward the EOIs to the government for consideration.
Mr Furner said the latest announcement would likely raise another outcry from the general public but reiterated the government's belief that people had walked away from the style of agricultural education offered at the college.
"There were more staff than students in the end, people had moved to doing training online," he said. "Education is a multi-faceted thing these days, there's a lot of competition out there."
However, he did say that a training organisation putting in an expression of interest would be attractive to the government.
He pointed to a $9.75 million investment in training infrastructure for the agriculture sector across Queensland over the current and next financial years, along with more than $140 million in research and extension work in the 2022-23 budget.
Due to the timing of the announcement, industry comment could not be included, but AgForce has previously asked to work with the government to consider the future for the college.
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