Sydney boasts towers, hotels and rooftop bars in $100b building boom

Despite the global pandemic that caused delays for many projects, the new buildings are now opening at a rapid rate – including the Salesforce Tower by Lendlease, the Quay Quarter Tower and the $3.1 billion Waldorf Astoria Hotel and apartment complex – and are now being followed by another wave of construction.

The latest is by developer Holdmark which has lodged a State Significant Development Application for a “sculptural” 59-storey hotel and commercial tower at 4-6 Bligh Street, in the heart of Sydney’s CBD. It has been designed by global architecture studio Woods Bagot with an estimated end value of $700 million.

Plans encompass a 200-room luxury hotel crowned by a rooftop bar 200 metres above the site with eight levels of premium office space, meeting and event rooms, retail, restaurants, and bars.

Holdmark bought the Bligh House property in July 2022 for $210 million and Woods Bagot’s design won a City of Sydney design excellence competition for the site. The current 17-storey office building is opposite one of the two pending Sydney Metro Hunter Street Station entrances.

The group’s chief operating officer, Kevin Nassif, said the proposed development, which was first flagged in November 2022, is part of a diversification strategy for Holdmark, which started with residential projects in western Sydney 30 years ago but is increasingly moving into commercial, retail and hotel developments, including InterContinental Parramatta.

“We bought the [Bligh House] asset purely on a commercial basis because we love the location, it has great development potential, and is 100 per cent occupied, which indicates that quality well-located buildings will stand the test of COVID and the test of time,” Nassif said.

Nassif sees a big future for tourism in Sydney’s CBD, which is benefitting from massive state government infrastructure investment and a focus on regenerating the city’s night-time economy.

“There’s no question that Sydney is on the path to becoming a truly global city, and we’re excited to be part of that,” he said. “We think there is enormous potential for tourism and that there is a long-term opportunity at the top end of the hotel market.”

Woods Bagot Principal and project design leader Ian Lomas describes the building as “a new sculpture in the heart of the city” celebrating the theatre of a hotel while maximising views from the hotel rooms, which occupy levels 14 to 56.

“We’re extremely proud of this design which is the first project to take advantage of the Central Sydney Planning Strategy by the City of Sydney and allows us to get the height we’ve been able to achieve,” Lomas said.

A few blocks away is a new 27-storey workplace, known as the Poly Centre, being a new component of the emerging Alfred, Pitt, Daley and George Streets (APDG) precinct, adjacent to Circular Quay.

The 210 George Street tower was designed by Grimshaw architects and has a series of cantilevered arches creating a “sheltered public realm in dialogue with the street and this historically significant precinct”.

The managing partner at Grimshaw’s Sydney studio, Andrew Cortese, said the Poly Centre is designed to maximise daylight, enable greater connectivity within, and enhance the enjoyment of the public area.

“We devised a system of elegantly elongated concrete arcs that are expressed at street level and repeated across each double-height floor plate to create mezzanines throughout the 27-storey build. On the top floor ‘city room’ the arcs reappear as expressed steel,” Cortese said.

Another tower that is getting closer to starting is the 50-storey City Tattersalls Club redevelopment tower at 194 – 204 Pitt Street.

The development team led by Singapore-listed First Sponsor and Melbourne-based ICD Property have appointed local Sydney firm, Richard Crookes Constructions, as the builders to Sydney’s high-profile redevelopment of the 125-plus-year-old City Tattersalls Club.

ICD Property and First Sponsor worked with project managers Deloitte PDS Group to maximise the site’s potential through optimised planning and design development.

Having achieved development consent in November 2021 by the Central Sydney Planning Committee, the site’s permit allows for major upgrades to the heritage ground floor plus construction of an entirely new 50-storey tower above comprising 241 luxury residences and a circa 110-room high-end boutique hotel, to be managed by the InterContinental Group.