The task, which began on Monday, will take contractors about a week. Yesterday, they began moving the bulky equipment, including eight large refrigerators, several commercial ovens and 15 stoves.
"We're taking virtually everything that is not screwed down," cookery programme manager Tony Heptinstall said yesterday.
A new training restaurant, two training kitchens and a production kitchen are being built at the rear of the Student Centre in Harbour Tce. The new kitchens had been designed to take the best of the gear from the old kitchens, Mr Heptinstall said. The stoves, which were only three or four years old and worth $5000 apiece, were too good to discard.
Among the more unusual items waiting to be shifted are a 100-litre capacity double boiler, a pastry rolling machine, a butcher's block and a bandsaw.
Hospitality programme manager Dion Hyde said he hoped contractors would be able to move the door off a very old and heavy steel safe which had been used to secure the takings from the training restaurant.
"It is historic. We should keep it if we can, [although] I'm not sure what we will do with it yet."
Work on the $4.1 million extension to the Student Centre began in November and is expected to be finished by July 20, when the second teaching semester begins.
About 120 students a year will use the new facilities for their full-time cookery, barista and cafe training, while about another 1000 will pass through on short courses, such as food handling and coffee-making.
The campus had been at Tennyson St for more than 40 years.
