NSW Billion-dollar projects set to transform Sydney by 2025 Sydney has been on pause for much of 2020, but construction hasn’t — with a multi billion-dollar renaissance underway that will transform how we live and work in Sydney in just five years. INTERACTIVE: HOW YOUR CITY WILL CHANGE
Gillian McNally, The Daily Telegraph Subscriber only | July 30, 2020 12:00am
Despite the economic turmoil of COVID-19, mega-dollar developments have been powering through the pandemic and will change the face of Sydney in the next five years.
By 2025, a string of new billion-dollar skyscrapers will dot Sydney’s skyline, Parramatta’s mammoth CBD transformation will be complete, 31 new metro stations will be up and running and stage one of Sydney’s second airport close to opening.
And it won’t stop there.
As the NSW government looks to construction to drive economic recovery and job growth, billions more in developments are being fast-tracked across Greater Sydney, which together with planning reforms cutting approval times, will bring more high-rise development along transport corridors.
But there will be challenges, warns Urban Taskforce CEO Tom Forrest, with the pandemic likely to impact how future commercial projects play out in terms of office space requirements, retail and residential needs.
He said councils like City of Sydney, which favour commercial development, may need to be flexible in terms of planning rules, allowing more residential components to boost off-the-sale plans and ensure future projects are feasible.
“You need something to be flexible, because the lessons from the ‘90s (recession) is if you don’t do that, you’ll have holes in the ground blighting the city,” Mr Forrest said
“That doesn’t help employment, that doesn’t help the city, that doesn’t help the commercial sector — and it doesn’t create an enlivened city by having people living in the place.”
These are the big projects that will change how we live and work in Sydney by 2025. Coming soon: from left, the Poly Centre, the Salesforce Tower at 180 George ST and Mirvac’s planned 55 Pitt St near the Museum of Sydney.
Quay Quarter Lanes directly behind Customs House will become a buzzing residential and retail area filled with cafes, bars and restaurants The Quay Quarter’s three residential and retail buildings will be finished next year, with 104 apartments and 21 shops expected to create a lively precinct surrounding the twisting 216m 6- Greenstar skyscraper, which brings 4000sq m of sky gardens and terraces by 2022.
The Salesforce tower, set to be Sydney’s tallest office building, will further enhance the precinct with an 800sq m $19 million public plaza, along with multi-level laneways lined with shops, cafes, and a swanky new Jackson’s on George bar.
An artist’s impression of Quay Quarter Tower, a vertical village made up of five ‘blocks’ shaped to capture daylight and great views for professionals.
Ones to Watch
55 Pitt st: Mirvac’s 232m commercial tower, estimated for completion 2026. 1. CIRCULAR QUAY The new poster child of Sydney’s renewal, Circular Quay’s boarded-up construction zones will be replaced by five sparkling developments in 2025, bringing a new public square, boutique laneways, shops, apartments and work spaces fit for a world-class city.
This super development site is bookended by AMP Capital’s ‘vertical village’ at Quay Quarter, Lendlease’s 268m Salesforce Tower, Yuhu Group’s Circular Quay tower, Mirvac’s $1.5 billion Pitt St tower and the Poly Centre tower at 210 George St. 56 Pitt St: Dexus estimated $3 billion super-tall tower, if it goes ahead, could soar to 305m.
Cnr Alfred & George St: Yuhu’s 197m One Circular Quay apartment tower and hotel.
Circular Quay ferry wharves: Construction on the $200m revitalisation expected by 2023.
Artist’s impression of the new George Street Square designed by British architect Sir David Adjaye and Indigenous artist Daniel Boyd.
NSW is currently working with two short-listed consortia to progress concepts for a renewed Circular Quay. Pictured: artist’s render of future wharves,
2. BARANGAROO Barangaroo South will be done and dusted by 2025, delivering new public spaces, retail, restaurants, a new metro station, housing for 3500 residents and commercial space for 24,000 workers in the bustling waterfront district.
The crowning glory in the $10 billion transformation of the former docklands — the 271m Crown Casino and Resort — will open in December this year.
The six-star hotel will be in good company by 2023 when the first of three luxury towers at One Sydney Tower opens. Complemented by Watermans Cove, an amphitheatre-style boardwalk on the water, and Hickson Park, a green link across Barangaroo South, the new precinct is expected to generate $2 billion a year for the economy.
Coming soon: Barangaroo's new Sydney Harbour Cove, the towering Crown Casino and Resort and One Sydney Harbour, the Renzo Piano-designed luxury towers. (Artist's impressions) A rendering of Hickson Park from the next section of Barangaroo’s public domain. One to watch;
100 Barangaroo Ave: Market launch and construction date for One Sydney Harbour’s two remaining Renzo Piano designed towers expected to be announced soon.
Barangaroo Central, planning underway for the final site including 3ha of public space and waterfront walkway.
3. SYDNEY CBD Sydneysiders can expect a buzzing, pedestrian friendly city with a backdrop of billion-dollar architecture by 2025, with 24-hour trading encouraging dining, shopping and cultural events after dark.
With the George St light rail and new metro stations boosting development opportunities, new clusters of super towers will continue to emerge as the Central Sydney Planning Strategy raises the skyline above 300m.
An artist's impression of the proposed 274m tower at 505 George St. Picture: Ingenhoven Architectus
Coming soon: From left, the Greenland Centre; the proposed mixed-use precinct at 505 George St; Martin Place integrated station development next to 50 Martin Place. This year, the Greenland Centre’s 235m tower at 115 Bathurst St will be completed, delivering a $25 million Creative Hub including space for dance, theatre, music, film and visual arts.
But the 67-storey tower will soon be dwarfed by Mirvac and Coombe’s soaring 274m super slim $1 billion skyscraper at 505 George St.
Set to revive the entertainment precinct, the Events cinema will make way for the proposed mixed-use, residential-led precinct including 507 apartments, luxury serviced suites, a rooftop restaurant and bar, boutique cinema, retail and a childcare centre.
Ones to watch
338 Pitt St: The $726 million New York style twin hotel and apartment towers proposed by China Centre Development and Han’s Group could go as high as 80 storeys.
Martin Place North: Macquarie Group will deliver two new towers above the new Martin Place Metro station including retail space, underground walkways and public space by 2025.
4. CENTRAL STATION PRECINCT Adventurous projects are in the works for the city’s western gateway, including a bold reimagining of Central Station, anchored by Atlassian’s timber hybrid skyscraper.
Dexus and Frasers $2.5 billion plan for Henry Dean Plaza has been green lit to progress, and a design competition expected soon with construction underway by 2025.
A render of how the redeveloped Henry Deane Plaza could look. Atlassian’s $1 billion tower next to the station will be the flagship project in Sydney’s new ‘Silicon Valley’, a tech hub on the station’s northern end driven by the NSW Government and forecast to draw 25,000 workers by 2025.
Meanwhile, the station itself continues to undergo a $955 million redevelopment as part of the Sydney Metro project, expected to be wrapped up by 2024.
An artist’s impression of Atlassian Sydney Headquarters, which would be the world’s tallest hybrid timber building in the tech precinct at Central Station.
Sydney’s CBD will expand south with the opening of the Central Precinct Renewal Project. One to watch
Central Precinct Renewal Program: The 24ha State Significant Project will eclipse Barangaroo in terms of scale and cost, expanding Sydney’s southern CBD into land bounded by Pitt, Cleveland and Elizabeth Streets and Eddy Ave. Early plans expected 2021. 5. DARLING HARBOUR With the spectacular $700 million Ribbon opening this year, bringing the world’s largest IMAX screen to town, along with shops, a W hotel, serviced apartments, bars, restaurants and public space, Darling Harbour will soon be unrecognisable from its 1988 beginnings.
But it will be $2 billion 6-Greenstar Cockle Bay Park tower that will supercharge the area, reconnecting the bay to the CBD, with a revitalised 10,000sq m retail precinct and 10,000 sqm of public space.
Artist's impression of the HASSELL designed $700M 'The Ribbon' in Darling Harbour.
Artists impressions of the planned $2 billion Cockle Bay Park, which will improve the pedestrian connections between the Sydney CBD and Darling Harbour. About 7000 sqm will be an elevated park over the eight-lane Western Distributor.
The 183m tower designed by Danish architect Henning Larsen will be elevated on pillars and broken up by green space woven through the building to give it a floating effect.
Shops, bars and restaurants will string along a public path that will connecting to the city centre and while it won’t scrape in by 2025, it’s slated for completion the following year.
An overview of Mirvac's updated plans for Habourside, Darling Harbour. Ones to watch;
Harbourside Shopping Centre: Mirvac has resubmitted plans to build a taller, thinner residential tower on the site as part of its proposed mixed-use redevelopment of site. including a vision for a massive observation deck, outdoor cinema, marketplace and floating walkways.
6. PYRMONT Beneath the striking wave-shaped, scale-patterned roof, the new four-storey $750 million Sydney Fish Markets will be humming with fishmongers, food retailers, cafes and restaurants, while returning previously inaccessible waterfront land to the public. Opening up the harbour foreshore, the development will create 4700 sqm of public open space and fill the missing link in a 15km walk from Rozelle to Woolloomooloo. Major works will begin early next year with completion expected in 2024.
Artist impression of redeveloped Sydney Fish Market at Blackwattle Bay.
An artist impression of the new Sydney Fish Market redevelopment designed by 3XN, BVN and Aspect Studios. One to watch:
Pyrmont Peninsula precinct: The state government’s Pyrmont Peninsula Place Strategy has identified four key sites for revitalisation over the next 20 years, concentrating on The Star, the Harbourside Shopping Centre, UTS Hay market and Blackwattle Bay. The existing Sydney Fish Market site at Blackwattle Bay site has been earmarked for new office and residential towers, as well as public spaces and paths to link it to the rest of the city.
7. PARRAMATTA In terms of urban renewal, it’s hard to look past the $3.2 billion transformation of Parramatta Square into a thriving precinct lined with shops, eateries, workplaces and a plaza bigger than Martin Place.
Two of the four towers are now complete and Walker Corporation‘s final additions — towers 6 and 8 (55-storeys) are under way. Artist impressions of Walker Corporation's billion Parramatta Square towers which are now almost complete.
Parramatta Square is expected to revitalise life after hours in the city centre.
Parramatta Square will turn the heart of the CBD into a vibrant, cosmopolitan commercial precinct, with some of Sydney’s best hospitality names set to bring the square alive. Not only has the scale of the project kept thousands employed through the pandemic, says Walker Corporation’s David Gallant, but the interconnected 6 and 8 towers combined are “among the most ambitious construction projects in Australia right now”. Delivering 290,000 sqm of office and retail space around the new 6000 sqm public square, when finished in 2022, the revitalised CBD will rival Sydney’s for scale and amenity.
An artist impressions of the residential tower in Parramatta at 180 George St. Ones to Watch:
180 George St: Meriton’s 213m two tower residential development by 2021.
2 O’Connell St: the 69-storey apartment tower will now soar to 217m.
Parramatta Light Rail: Stage one’s 16 stations from Westmead to Carlingford by 2023.
8. SYDNEY METRO The $40 billion stand-alone Sydney Metro will deliver 31 metro stations and more than 66 km of new tracks by 2024, guiding Sydney’s growth for decades to come.
Sydney Metro Chief Executive Jon Lamonte said the scale of transport infrastructure was unprecedented with three major metro projects underway concurrently — Sydney Metro’s City & Southwest, West and Western Sydney Airport lines.
The mega Sydney Metro West project will take thousands of cars off the roads every day and support the creation of thousands of new jobs in Western Sydney. “Metro West will double the capacity of the congested Parramatta to Sydney CBD corridor via almost 50km of underground metro rail tunnels,” Mr Lamonte said. “It will become the easiest and fastest journey between Parramatta and the Sydney CBD, with a travel time target between the two centres of about 20 minutes.”
Work will also start on Western Sydney Airport Metro project later this year and will support about 14,000 jobs, including 250 new apprentices. Artists impression of the proposed high-rise development to be built over the Victoria Cross Metro station at North Sydney. Source: NSW Government
The Victoria Cross development will include office space, retail, dining and new public open. Source: NSW Government
Ones to watch
The Metro is driving high-rise and medium density development from Crows Nest and St Leonards to Ryde and Macquarie Park, along with new integrated developments over stations including:
Waterloo Metro Quarter: Five towers including new homes, affordable and social housing shops, community facilities, green space and two public plazas by 2025.
Victoria Cross station: A $1.2 billion 42-storey tower will emerge over the North Sydney metro station including office space, retail, dining and public space by 2024.
9. WESTERN SYDNEY AIRPORT In the coming years, the $5.3 billion Western Sydney Airport at Badgerys Creek will be a major driver of housing, jobs and local investment as Australia recovers from COVID-19.
Construction on the Nancy-Bird Walton Airport will be done in four stages, and when stage one opens late 2026, it will handle 10 million domestic and international passengers a year, rising to 82 million by 2060.
Western Sydney Airport will be supported by strong infrastructure platforms including the Aerotropolis Metro Station. The surrounding multi-billion new city, Western Sydney Aerotropolis, won’t stand still in the meantime with the $8 billion Sydney World Trade Centre, agribusiness and manufacturing precincts, a mammoth logistics hub and CSIRO’s 18,000sq m carbon-neutral facility expected to be up and running in the next five years, and investment to continue pouring in.
Artist impressions of the state-of-the-art CSIRO facility at the Western Sydney Aerotropolis.
A concept image of the World Trade Centre at Badgerys Creek designed by Woods Bagot. One to watch:
Western Sydney Aerotropolis: Tipped to become Australia’s third-largest economy by 2036, the growing city’s focus on knowledge jobs in education, science and technology including aerospace and defence, as well as agribusiness, advanced manufacturing, health care, freight and logistics will set it on the path to become an economic powerhouse.