Dwindling enrolments almost closed Ultimo Primary School more than 20 years ago but instead of young families fleeing the inner city, the school-aged population ballooned.
Demountable buildings were trucked in and then, 12 years ago, a large-scale renovation of the school added more classrooms to the increasingly cramped buildings.
But there was no more room to grow and finally, after more than a year of negotiations between the City of Sydney and the NSW Department of Education, land has been secured for a new school.
The inner city school will open on the first day of term one in 2018, NSW Education Minister Adrian Piccoli said on Monday.
The state government this week agreed to pay $74 million to buy the council-owned site on the corner of Wattle, Jones and Fig Streets in Ultimo to house a new school with 40 classrooms, a library, a hall and covered outdoor learning spaces. It will accommodate as many as 1000 primary school students.
But the project was placed in jeopardy earlier this month when talks between the education department and the council collapsed when a sale price could not be agreed. But late last week, the council dropped its asking price and the department again agreed to buy the land.
Mr Piccoli said a childcare centre and room for after-school care would be part of the new development on the site.
"Ultimo Public School has been on its current site for 100 years and it needs space to grow as it prepares to deliver quality public education for another century," Mr Piccoli said.
Mr Piccoli said some of the costs of the project would be offset by the sale of the existing Ultimo school site.
The state government's inner city schools working party is also expected to hand its recommendations for a much-needed new inner city high school to Mr Piccoli before the end of the year.
The department says its predictions show that by 2026, there will be an extra 2500 secondary students living in inner Sydney, which includes public schools in the City of Sydney, Marrickville and Leichhardt council areas.
