Sydney’s 13 richest private schools worth billions to would-be developers
WATCH: From the big bucks of Bellevue Hill to ritzy riverside real estate, 13 of Sydney’s richest private schools sit on prime land estimated to be worth almost $6 billion between them. See the biggest portfolios.
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Sydney’s richest private schools have banked prime real estate estimated to be worth almost $6 billion, with one school alone valued at nearly $2 billion, courtesy of its vast Western Sydney landholding.
Independent valuations provided to The Daily Telegraph by a Sydney property expert put the price of thirteen prestigious schools, ranked by the income of the families who attend them, at a combined value of $5.745 billion to developers.
Among the largest – and most valuable – are The King’s School at North Parramatta, St Ignatius’ College Riverview, Barker College in Hornsby and Cranbrook in Bellevue Hill.
EXP Real Estate agent Alex Haddad said if the 130-hectare grounds of King’s were to be subdivided into “an easy 1500 lots” and sold at a “very conservative” $1.3 million each, it would be worth $1.95 billion.
The school also owns a 65-hectare property in the Southern Highlands, which a spokesman for the school attributed to the “foresight of past members of the King’s community”.
“The School is endowed with an extraordinary geographic footprint … (and) has a responsibility to not only sustain these wonderful assets for the good of the immediate school community, but to ensure that their benefit extends to always making an outstanding impact for the good of a global society,” he said.
Rivalling King’s land with waterfront views, if the 40ha grounds of all-boys GPS school St Ignatius’ could ever be put up for sale, the estate could fetch “in excess of $1.3 billion”, Mr Haddad estimated.
Overlooking the Lane Cove River, the Riverview Estate was purchased by Jesuit Father Joseph Dalton in 1878, and nearly 150 years later the school is spending $46 million constructing a new five-storey science and technology facility, dubbed ‘Wingaru’.
Set on similarly large estates but further afield, Barker College’s 44 hectares in Hornsby and Pymble Ladies College’s 20 hectares may be worth as much as $750 million and $420 million to developers respectively.
Barker is set to undertake a major redevelopment after its ‘master plan’ to lift its enrolment cap, introduce more green spaces and build an Aquatic and Tennis Centre on its ground was recently rubber-stamped by planning authorities.
College Head Phillip Heath with the plans approved, the school can now acquire two more adjacent properties.
“Whilst there are no confirmed plans for new School facilities on these sites, at this time, the School seeks to add amenity to the entire Hornsby Shire precinct,” Mr Heath said.
“Any future development plans recognise our intent to provide access to facilities for the local community, which has long been the custom of Barker College.”
Meanwhile in the eastern suburbs, Cranbrook School “is even on another level”, Mr Haddad said, with its sprawling five-hectare Bellevue Hill grounds worth “at least” half a billion dollars.
Many of the priciest private schools are now struggling to squeeze skyrocketing enrolments into their original, historic campuses, forcing them to buy up surrounding properties – and paying top dollar in the process.
Balmoral beachfront all-girls school Queenwood has three Mosman campuses, and in 2021 bought a neighbouring Hunter Road property for $8.4 million as “a strategic acquisition”.
Fellow girls’ school Ascham expanded its five hectare “landlocked” Edgecliff campus by purchasing an adjacent 1930s apartment building to be converted into a boarding precinct for 30 girls, paying between $3.1 and $5.2 million per unit.
Eastern suburbs buyers’ agent Penny Vandenhurk said private schools regularly employ buyers’ agents when approaching reluctant occupants, to disguise their identity until the point of sale and reduce backlash from anti-development owners.
“A school is more than willing to pay above market rate … because it means more to the school (than the ordinary buyer) and they have endless buckets of money.”
Mr Haddad was careful to note that the estimates are a rough guide only, and don’t take into account easements, zonings, restrictions or the myriad of other factors any potential developer would take into account.
First National Real Estate CEO Ray Ellis said accurately valuing the sites – mostly historic and designated exclusively for education use – is “impossible”.
“A lot of these schools established in the eastern suburbs of Sydney or the north shore, when they started they were … a long way from the centre of Sydney,” Mr Ellis said.
“It just so happens that in the last 50 to 80 years, they’re now in prime land or waterfront spots.”
University of Sydney education academic Dr Helen Proctor said the top private schools are always in an “arms race” against each other, using land and buildings as their primary “point of distinction” in marketing materials.
“Had the government owned all that land, there probably would have been 100 schools and hospitals built there by now,” she said.
“The question is, because they’re getting government subsidies … to what extent should these assets be shared?”
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