Unique waterfront site up for grabs with a $70 million price tag
A heritage site on the banks of Sydney’s Parramatta River that was previously home to one of Australia’s first breweries is up for sale for more than $70 million with approval to create commercial business spaces and up to 70 new homes.
The 15,800-square-metre block of land at Putney, 11 kilometres east of Parramatta, is believed to be the last resting place of Indigenous leader Bennelong, although his grave has been long lost.
The site now has approval for the adaptive re-use of the old boatshed off Waterview Street – on the area where the Squire’s Brewery was established in the 1790s by First-Fleeter James Squire, next door to his Malting Shovel Inn – and the building of townhouses and apartments. It has 300 metres of water frontage.
“It’s a unique waterfront site and for many years it was owned by the state government,” said Trent Gallagher, the national director of property sales and leasing, South Sydney, at selling agency Colliers. “But it was finally sold and it’s been rented out ever since to different industrial and waterfront users.
“Now, with this development application approval, it can become a very high-end mixed-use development with a 36-berth marina. It’s a beautiful site and we’ve already received a lot of interest.”
The brewer James Squire was a friend of Bennelong, who was kidnapped by the colony’s first governor, Arthur Phillip, and taken to London. Bennelong later came back to NSW and is thought to have been buried on Squire’s land.
The brewery was replaced in the 1930s by the boatshed which still sits on the shores of the river. It was erected by Norwegian-born boat-builder Lars Halvorsen and his family, who moved to Sydney in 1925.
It was used by the boatmen who transported people between Sydney and Parramatta and, with such thirsty work, who regularly called into the inn beside it for a drink. In 1961, Halvorsen’s company built a 12-metre yacht, Gretel, that was Australia’s first entrant into the America’s Cup race.
The complex was later taken over by the Royal Australian Navy and used for small craft. When the Navy moved on from the site, it was rented by a variety of tradespeople with businesses relating to boats and marinas.
Today, the stage one approval is for the boatshed, with its lofty roof and ceiling, to be partially demolished but mostly adapted to accommodate marine-related companies as well as retail food and drink premises and up to 19 dwellings inside.
“It’s effectively a very high clearance warehouse so will make for great homes,” Gallagher said. “Then there’ll be 18 three-storey townhouses on Waterview Street, as well as two small apartment buildings, with 33 units, and then the marina.
“It will be a quality developer who probably buys the site in order to create beautiful homes sitting on the waterfront. It’s unique, and one of the last waterfront areas left in this location. Putney is being developed with housing, but for good apartments, you’d have to travel to Gladesville or Rhodes and this will be so much more private, peaceful and suitable for people like empty nesters.”
The property at 20 Waterview Street in Putney will be sold via an expressions-of-interest campaign closing at 3pm on Thursday, November 10, with price expectations above $70 million.
