The south-western Sydney suburb of Liverpool is well on the way to being transformed into the city’s third CBD, with a phalanx of slick new commercial developments underway that will create a completely reinvigorated hub.
At the forefront of it all is the $600 million mixed-use urban renewal project, Liverpool Civic Place, the centrepiece of the plans to regenerate the area into a vibrant, 18-hour city.
And taking pride of place, among all the public spaces under construction, with the new council offices, chambers, childcare centre, state-of-the-art six-level library, civic plaza and car park, is a $350 million 24-storey A-grade office tower, 44 Scott Street, with 20,000 square metres of space to lease.
“It’s just topped out and will be completed at the end of October this year. It will be the catalyst for activating the rest of the precinct,” says Jono Cottee, development director of developer and construction company Built, which is creating Liverpool Civic Place in a joint venture with the council.
“I think Parramatta has been in the spotlight with its new Parramatta Square, and this will do for Liverpool what that did for Parramatta. It’s really exciting for us. This will bring Liverpool up to another level with such quality offices in an area that hasn’t traditionally had this kind of offering.”
No. 44 Scott Street will indeed prove an eye-catching addition to the city, designed by award-winning architect fjcstudio as a good-looking contemporary tower on rigorous sustainable design principles.
It will set new environmental, social and governance (ESG) standards for Liverpool and Western Sydney as a net-zero, fully electrified building.
Liverpool is seen as the perfect recipient for all this new investment as it’s well placed to capture a whole new swathe of the office market, being so close to the new Western Sydney Airport and the multi-billion-dollar Aerotropolis. In addition, it has major public transport and road infrastructure, including the new M12 motorway, Sydney Metro West and the Fifteenth Avenue Smart Transit (FAST) Corridor.
Then there is its burgeoning health sector with Liverpool Hospital at the city’s centre and two new private hospitals mooted to be on the way. It’s also becoming a major education hub with the campuses of no fewer than four universities – Wollongong, the University of NSW, Western Sydney University and TAFE NSW – as well as the redevelopment of several schools.
“We can see solid demand from particular groups of occupiers, typically the medical, education and government sectors,” says Jonathan Betts, director of commercial real estate leasing company Resonate Partners. “We’re also consistently seeing a move to better quality space across the board.
“It’s not quite ‘build it, and they will come’, but it’s ‘build the right quality stock, and people will appreciate the opportunity’. Hopefully, we’ll have no trouble leasing this new space. There’s a lot going on in Liverpool at the moment, including massive population growth, with people wanting to work locally rather than travelling to the Sydney CBD.”
Liverpool mayor Ned Mannoun says the rebirth of Liverpool has been just incredible. By offering such a value proposition to residents, workers and developers alike, it’s catering for a wide variety of occupants.
“Liverpool has come back to life, and it’s really buzzing now,” Mannoun says. “And we’re going to ratchet it up even more, and we’ll see growing activity levels. It’s such a workable and liveable city, and we have over 300 people moving into our region every week.
“There’s so much connectivity here, so much amenity, it’s so close to the airport, and yet it’s still very affordable.”
For David Borger, executive director of Business Western Sydney, Liverpool is where it’s all at.
“It’s an enormous beast in the centre, and it’s growing fast, and it’s the next big thing for western Sydney,” he says. “The market is now seeing Parramatta growing more expensive and is looking at Liverpool as the next place.
“It needs A-grade corporate offices, and we’ve seen how that worked in Parramatta, and now it’s going to work in Liverpool.”
Other developers are also working on their own projects to uplift the city’s broad offering too. FYVE, for instance, broke ground late last year on its Rothelowman-designed 34-storey mixed-use building, The Liverpool, with 6500 square metres of commercial space, a 93-room hotel, an array of retail and 193 apartments.
“We’re situated at the epicentre of the Western Sydney Aerotropolis precinct, which will become a thriving economic zone surrounding the future airport, that is set to generate tens of thousands of new jobs in the region,” said Amen Zoabi, FYVE founder and managing director.
“This bodes extremely well for the future of the city of Liverpool as it matures into the premier destination within Sydney’s booming Western Parkland City.”