building while tenants continued to be onboarded, at a cost neither party had budgeted for. This was not our finest moment of planning, but it produced one of the project’ s clearest lessons: the cost of learning after commitment is higher than the cost of learning before it, and where circumstances genuinely prevent the second, an agreement needs contingency built in from day one.
That experience also influenced Merribek ' s own thinking. Today, a practical recommendation to other councils from its Economic Development team would be to build cost escalation into longterm agreements from the beginning, because the environment around a project will almost certainly change before the project itself is complete. Equally important was the advice to ensure that annual development KPIs are supported by clear and measurable objectives so that both parties remain aligned around what success actually looks like as the partnership evolves.
FROM CONFIDENCE TO TRUST When the project first commenced, confidence was a scarce commodity. Banks wanted stronger security, investors wanted evidence and Council quite reasonably wanted confidence that economic and civic value would emerge from the partnership.
Confidence grew gradually as the project moved forward. As enterprises established themselves on site, they attracted the attention of others who could see the direction of travel. Increasing occupancy generated additional revenue, which allowed further investment in the building, while growing relationships between tenants, Council and Impact Neighbourhoods built a level of trust and confidence over time. Assumptions were progressively replaced by change people could see and feel, and that evidence became far more persuasive than any predictions made six years earlier.
The experience raises a broader question about whether too much time can be spent searching for certainty when confidence is actually what changes people ' s willingness to act. At BRUDI, confidence attracted private capital, more businesses and further investment. It was not generated by a“ masterplan”; it emerged progressively because people could see that momentum was building.
Today, Nutromics occupies more than 1,100 square metres at BRUDI, has attracted approximately $ 60 million in investment and operates what is arguably one of Australia ' s largest community-based laboratory facilities.
One of the more counterintuitive lessons was that capital did not necessarily create confidence. Instead, it often appeared to work the other way around, because underneath confidence you have trust, and that is one of the greatest drivers for progress and investment.
Perhaps the clearest example was the medtech company, Nutromics. Like the project itself, Nutromics was growing, experimenting and solving problems that did not fit neatly within existing categories. Rather than requiring them to define exactly what they would need years into the future, Impact Neighbourhoods learned alongside them, gradually creating the laboratory and prototyping environment they needed as their research matured, without trying to predict everything from the outset.
What was being built was more than just laboratory space. Trust was developing alongside it: Nutromics needed confidence that its environment would keep adapting as their business evolved, while Impact Neighbourhoods needed confidence that investment in increasingly specialised infrastructure would create long-term value for the stakeholders involved.
That trust could not be negotiated into existence through a lease clause or a business case; it developed because each side kept delivering on its commitments as new challenges emerged.
Today, Nutromics occupies more than 1,100 square metres at BRUDI, has attracted approximately $ 60 million in investment and operates what is arguably one of Australia ' s largest community-based laboratory facilities. That outcome could never have been predicted in the original feasibility study or masterplan, because neither organisation knew exactly where the journey would lead. It emerged because the partnership had created enough trust to keep learning together.
Crucially, that trust didn ' t stop with Nutromics; other businesses saw it, investors saw it, and eventually the banks saw it too. The project became easier to finance and easier for others to believe in, because evidence of delivery had replaced much of the ambiguity that existed at the beginning. Trust became one of the project ' s most valuable forms of capital.
Somewhere along the journey, the way Impact Neighbourhoods thought about the building began to change. It was natural to assume the building was the asset, but over time it became obvious that it was simply the place where the enabling conditions had been created. What emerged from those conditions was something much more valuable. Businesses collaborated, entrepreneurs met investors, researchers connected with industry and knowledge moved between organisations. The building became valuable because of the activity it enabled rather than the bricks and mortar themselves.
ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT JOURNAL VOL 19 NO 2 2026 13