Sydney rezones Surry Hills Shopping Centre for redevelopment
The City of Sydney has approved developer Toga’s plan to redevelop the Surry Hills Shopping Village by adding 170 apartments in exchange for creating more public space and a new pedestrian laneway.
While the NSW government still has to approve the plan, Toga hoped to be able to start construction of the $100 million project next year after a planning process that would include a design competition to finalise the scheme, chief executive Fabrizio Perilli said.
“It’s a centre that needs some love and attention,” Mr Perilli told The Australian Financial Review.
“You’ve got a massive tract of land that has been under-utilised for many years and it is tired. The opportunity is to create a precinct that caters to multi-use, retail being one of them. And a residential population and hopefully an office population. But they’re things that need to be worked through.”
The site, bound by Baptist, Cleveland and Marriott Streets in the inner-ring suburb was earmarked in 2008 for mixed-use redevelopment in the City’s Sustainable Sydney 2030 Vision. Just inside the Redfern on the border with Surry Hills it is a dense area, with almost 122 people per hectare, compared with an average of 84 across the City of Sydney area.
The planned redevelopment will raise building heights to accommodate the new residential buildings and retain the heritage-listed former Bank of NSW building on the site. It will create more public space on the south-west of the site, widen the footpath along Marriott Street and include a new laneway towards the south that improves the walking route to MoorePark.
The City said it will work with the state government to finalise the planning proposal and new planning controls for the 12,244-square-metre site. Revisions to the proposal would mitigate the effects of increased traffic on the site’s western side, it said.
“We need good planning to make sure the local economy continues to grow and thrive,” Lord Mayor Clover Moore said. “This proposed redevelopment will improve the design of the shopping village, and changes in building height will provide essential open space for the growing numbers of people living and working in the area.”
Mr Perilli said the existing shopping centre would close once the two to two-and-a-half year construction process started. Coles, the existing supermarket tenant, would anchor the new full-range supermarket on the rebuilt site, he said.
It was “an opportunity to reposition that whole tract of land and make it a place people want to come to,” he said.
