Campbelltown Arts Centre Will Move To Queen Street Library During $84.6 Million Redevelopment

Campbelltown Arts Centre will shift into a temporary city-centre home from April 2027 while its Art Gallery Road site closes for a major redevelopment. Campbelltown City Council announced on 4 August that the temporary location will be on the ground floor of Campbelltown Library on Queen Street. The current arts centre site is due to close in March 2027, with construction expected to begin the following month and finish in 2029.

The move is a practical update for artists, audiences, workshop participants and community groups who rely on the centre. Rather than pausing activity during construction, council says exhibitions, workshops and events will continue at the temporary Queen Street location and across the local government area, supported by satellite venues and community centres. That approach keeps the arts centre visible in the city while its permanent home is being rebuilt.

The redevelopment is budgeted at $84.6 million. Council says the expanded centre will include a new theatre, new gallery spaces, function facilities, workshops, artist studios, a larger cafe and a reoriented entry. The funding package is made up of $79 million from the NSW Government's Western Sydney Infrastructure Grants Program and $5.6 million from Campbelltown's Local Infrastructure Plan. The scale places the project among the larger cultural infrastructure works in south-west Sydney.

For Campbelltown, the location of the temporary home is important. Queen Street is the city centre's main civic and retail spine, and placing the arts centre program inside the library gives the project a central presence during the build. It may also expose exhibitions and programs to library users who do not normally visit the Art Gallery Road site. The temporary move will still involve compromise, because a library floor cannot replicate the full facilities, grounds and specialist spaces of a purpose-built arts centre. But it gives council a way to keep programming alive rather than disappearing from public view until 2029.

The redevelopment also speaks to the broader growth of south-west Sydney. Campbelltown is no longer only a fringe city absorbing population growth; it is increasingly expected to provide cultural, education, health and employment infrastructure for a much larger region. A larger arts centre can support local artists, touring work, community programs, school engagement and night-time activity. It can also help retain creative activity locally, instead of requiring residents to travel into inner Sydney for major cultural experiences.

The project will need careful communication as the closure date approaches. Regular visitors will need clear information about what moves to Queen Street, what moves to satellite venues, how bookings and workshops will operate, and whether any programs pause during the transition. Artists and community groups will also want to know how studio, exhibition and performance opportunities will be handled while the permanent site is unavailable.

The key reassurance in council's announcement is that the arts centre is being treated as an active service during construction, not only as a building project. That distinction matters. Infrastructure funding can produce impressive concept images, but the public value of an arts centre depends on continuity of programming, local access and the relationships built with artists and audiences. The Queen Street move gives Campbelltown a bridge between those two phases: keeping culture operating in the city centre while the permanent centre is rebuilt for a larger south-west Sydney role.