While new houses at Kelso, Eglinton and Windradyne spread out onto former farmland, there have been signs of a residential thickening in Bathurst’s centre that is almost certain to accelerate in the coming years.

A six-lot residential subdivision was approved last year for George Street, opposite the King’s Hotel, while a redevelopment of the Bathurst Convention and Function Centre site on Howick Street, just two blocks from the post office, is underway.

The late Bruce Bolam, who always seemed to be three moves ahead of everyone else when it came to property development in this city, had also turned his mind to the CBD’s future before he passed away last year, incorporating luxury apartments as he transformed sites in George Street opposite Machattie Park and closer to the highway.

A simultaneous expansion on the edges and a boost to density in the middle is not a new trend for growing cities – it continues to be in evidence in Sydney, which has more than 220 years under its belt.

So if Bathurst knows what its residential future looks like, it must also know the main challenge ahead: how to allow more people to live in and around the CBD without losing what makes that CBD so special - its history and heritage.

A project announced this week by Stephen and Glenda Birrell, the owners of the Tremain’s Mill site in Keppel Street, answers that question emphatically.

Mr Birrell has given engineering students from Charles Sturt University the opportunity of a lifetime: the chance to come up with designs to put luxury apartments in the 100-year-old timber silos at the site.

They have just a couple of months to come up with something creative – and Mr Birrell has made it clear he wants their designs to respect the heritage of the mill.

If the project comes to fruition, and there is no reason to believe it won’t given the time and effort the Birrells have put into the site since they bought it, it might serve as a template for others to follow.

Bathurst is always going to face a balancing act as its centre develops. If it gets that balancing act right, it will have a CBD full of history with all the buzz and energy that an inner-city population brings.

What will be needed will be creativity and flexibility – so it’s a good thing that some bright young minds are on the job.