Roche family sells Double Bay site for $55 million
BRW rich listers the Roche family have sold the development-approved residential site at 20-26 Cross Street, Double Bay, in Sydney’s eastern suburbs for $55 million.
The site, earmarked for a six-level mixed-use building with 34 luxury apartments, and ground-floor retail, was contested by residents who wanted to keep the lane close by – Knox Lane – part of an outdoor dining hub.
The apartments have been designed by Bates Smart.
The site at 20-26 Cross Street is home to commercial properties leased to businesses such as Cooley Auctions.
A private local developer beat other interested parties, including well-known residential developer Toga, to the site, paying a price developers said was “too high”.
“To make it work, the apartments would have to be priced at around $40,000 a square metre, and Double Bay is about $25,000 to $30,000 a square metre, tops,” a developer said. “$40,000 a square metre could work if it had a view, or if it’s in the CBD or Point Piper.”
House prices in Sydney continue to skyrocket especially for prime waterfront real estate. Earlier this year Macrolink and its local joint venture Landream’s Opera Residences in Circular Quay netted the record-breaking $90,000 a square metre rate for penthouses.
Toga is understood to have offered about $41 million for the site. Others offered between $40 million and $43 million.
The site is of interest to Toga because it is developing the adjacent site at 16-18 Cross Street into a 13-unit project called The Hunter. Both sites are opposite the InterContinental Hotel.
This is not the first time Toga has bid for a Roche family site. In 2014, Toga bought the former headquarters of the Roche’s Nutrimetics cosmetics business, a waterfront industrial site in Sydney’s Balmain for $58 million; 100 Elliott Street has the potential to yield 121 apartments.
CBRE’s Peter Krieg and Ben Wicks sold the site but have declined to comment.
