Mr Drum toured the site on Thursday morning and watched the first suspended concrete slab pour get underway.

"It's exciting when you do come in and see the pour going the way it is," he said.

"Even in the time that we've been standing here today it's great to see how the tradies have moved a considerable distance already.

"It's worth noting some of the precast panels are coming from Shepparton which is great to see because there's a whole range of regional businesses, not just Bendigo, benefiting from this project.

"For tradies and workers here it's business as usual but it's a great opportunity for us in government to see a landmark pour occur."

Mr Drum said it was great to see the project taking shape.

"It takes me back a bit to my own days in the trade when we used to do some concrete pours," he said.

"So its great to see them working the way they are.

"This is the first of the suspended floor pours and it will lay the ground work for a whole range of further construction to go ahead.

"You can see the first of the four big cranes now taking pride of place.

"And certainly it just seems to be all systems go."

Mr Drum said the Bendigo community was still coming to terms with the enormity of the project.

"When you think that our previous biggest building was Bendigo Bank and this is nearly ten times that," he said.

"That's possibly a good way of thing about it - 10 times our previous biggest building in the CBD.

"As it continues to jump ahead at the pace it is, people are going to see it's size and more readily acknowledge the scale of the project."

Bendigo Health chief executive John Mulder said the project was "enormous".

"I think the people of Bendigo, as they see it come out of the ground, will realise the size of the contribution," he said.

"The last large building we had in Bendigo was the Bendigo Bank building - this one is nine times the size in terms of structure in square metres and when we get to that seventh story and people see what a massive civic building we have."