WHAT do the National Portrait Gallery, the suburb of Crace and the Monash Green retirement living development in Tuggeranong have in common?

Each year, the Property Council hosts awards to recognise the contribution its industry makes to Canberra’s local economy and community.

This year, the most highly-coveted award was presented to Goodwin Aged Care Services for Monash Green, a development that shows why downsizing can mean upsizing in terms of amenity and liveability.

Monash Green joins other Canberra icons and well-kept secrets – NewActon has changed the way Australia thinks about precincts; the National Portrait Gallery and extension to the National Gallery of Australia are superb investments in our cultural capital; the RM Hope Building, at 2 National Circuit, has preserved an art deco delight for future generations and the suburb of Crace has reinvented the “Great Australian Dream”.

“We shape our buildings; thereafter they shape us,” Winston Churchill famously remarked. Never was this truer than for Canberra.

We can be proud of our city that frequently tops the rankings as Australia’s most liveable. We have buildings that remind us of the past and inspire us to a better future. And we have a vibrant property and construction sector that underpins Canberra’s economic growth.

In fact, the property and construction industry generates almost 25,000 jobs across the ACT and is the second largest employer.

The sector contributes $2.6 billion to the economy – just under 10 per cent of the Territory’s total wealth. It also more than pays its dues, contributing more tax than other industry.