TELSTRA has announced plans to establish a major new office and commercial centre in Braddon, meaning more than 1000 workers will move to Mort Street. 

A 12-year lease was recently signed for an office building at 16-18 Mort Street, with refurbishment of the building to be completed by early 2014.

The building will then accommodate more than 1,000 people across 13,250 square metres of office space.

“This will be the biggest project our property team has undertaken in Canberra and the largest for the company so far this year,” Telstra Property Director Mr Vito Chiodo said.

“The project has plenty of moving parts – we will create state-of-the-art office accommodation for many of our existing teams, install a new Telstra store, fully refurbish the building entrance and reception areas complete with a new café and free Wi-Fi, as well as build extensive accommodation for a large team of specialists now being pulled together to deliver sensitive defence work.”

It is expected 120 local jobs will be created during the construction period, which will begin immediately and is expected to be completed in early 2014.

Telstra recently signed a six-year $1.1 billion contract with the Department of Defence to provide telecommunications services creating 350 new Telstra jobs, some of which will be based in Canberra.