Enterprise hub to help businesses set up by University of South Australian in Adelaide city heritage building

The University of South Australia enterprise hub became the new role for the state-heritage-listed warehouse building in Light Square, Adelaide city, retaining elements of its other former lives as a nightclub and restaurant.

After former lives including Le Rox nightclub and Night Train theatre restaurant, the South Australian state-heritage-listed 9-19 Light Square, Adelaide city, opened in 2023, as the University of South Australia enterprise hub.

In the north-western corner of Light Square, the enterprise hub was designed to help businesses thrive by connecting them to University of South Australia researchers and knowledge experts to help solve complex challenges and produce mutually beneficial outcomes for industry and society.

The university’s deputy vice chancellor/research and enterprise, professor Marnie Hughes-Warrington said the Enterprise Hub was South Australia’s front door for industry to develop, and to extend partnerships, with the university community: “Industry professionals can come into the Hub with problems, projects and ideas, and our team will collaborate with them to produce cutting-edge solutions.”

Hughes-Warrington said the goal was to accelerate the strengthening and diversifying f the South Australian economy, and to export South Australian innovations across Australia and the world.University of South Australia already collaborated with more than 6500 partners from industries including space, defence, manufacturing, agriculture, health and medicine.

Michelle Cox, Australia’s managing director of dperations at the Fortune 500 company Accenture, said University of South Australia’s enterprise hub was a historic milestone for industry and research: “We have been collaborating with UniSA since 2021 and, in that time, we have worked with UniSA to disrupt the business sector, and, more recently, the technology and space industry.”

Rebuilding and refurbishing of the Light Square premises transformed the iconic red brick building into a modern two-storey hub, with workshop areas, laboratories, 3D printing and co-working spaces.

Constructed in the early 20th Century for Bagot, Shakes and Lewis, a major stock and station agency in South Australia, the building was later owned by Goldsbrough Mort and Company.

Enterprise hub director Peter Stevens said the significant facelift also paid tribute to the building’s later rich and colourful history: “We’ve kept the huge bird cage that adorned the entrance to the nightclub, the eccentric vampire artwork from the 90’s Night Train scene and the original loading beam from the building’s construction in 1912.”