The former Holden factory in Elizabeth, South Australia, is being transformed into a $500 million Australia Post parcel super hub.
The 83,000m2 facility is scheduled to open in late 2028.
A ceremony has been held for the project, which will replace the former car factory with a parcel processing hub.
This hub will be capable of handling up to 400,000 parcels per day – double the capacity of Australia Post‘s existing Adelaide Airport Parcel Facility.
Redevelopment of the Former Factory
The redevelopment follows similar transformations of other former Australian vehicle manufacturing sites.
The former Holden Special Vehicles (HSV) site at Clayton, in Melbourne’s south-east, was demolished in 2025 to make way for a data centre.
Likewise, part of the former Ford Australia assembly plant at Broadmeadows is set to become the site of a data centre operated by Singapore-based Zerra DC.
The Elizabeth factory opened in 1960, just months after Ford‘s Broadmeadows plant.
Initially producing body panels, the first complete vehicle – an HD Holden – rolled off its production line in 1965.
Over the following 52 years, the plant built more than seven million vehicles, including models as varied as the Kingswood, Torana, Monaro, and Gemini through to the Commodore, Cruze, and Statesman.
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History of the Holden Factory
It also built Toyota-badged vehicles under the Button Plan, the Hawke Government‘s industry rationalisation strategy introduced in 1985.
This strategy aimed to reduce the number of locally built vehicle models and improve manufacturing efficiency.
As part of that rationalisation, Holden closed its Acacia Ridge plant in Queensland in 1985, followed by its Dandenong, Victoria factory in 1994, leaving Elizabeth as the last of the company’s seven Australian assembly plants.
The final vehicle built at Elizabeth was a VF II Holden Commodore SS-V Redline sedan, which rolled off the production line on October 20, 2017.
Holden later applied the Commodore name to an imported Opel Insignia-based liftback and wagon.
General Motors shuttered the Holden brand in 2020, but the American automaker remains in Australia and New Zealand.
Impact of the Transformation
According to the report, South Australian Acting Deputy Premier Nick Champion said, “We’re spending more time shopping online and as a result there’s this huge volume of parcels now coming through Australia Post‘s system, and they need modern warehousing, modern parcel delivery and the facilities to do it.”
The new parcel super hub is expected to handle a significant portion of this volume, with a capacity of up to 400,000 parcels per day.
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The Elizabeth factory’s transformation into a parcel super hub is a significant development in the history of the site.
With its rich history of vehicle manufacturing, the site is now being repurposed to meet the changing needs of the economy.
As Australia Post continues to expand its operations, the new parcel super hub is expected to play a key role in the company’s efforts to improve its parcel processing capabilities.
They need modern facilities.
Australia Post is expanding its operations to meet the increasing demand for parcel delivery services, driven in part by the growth of online shopping.
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