How Norwest Business Park could reach for the sky by 2037

PART 4: NORWEST Business Park would boast the tallest buildings in the Hills shire under plans being submitted by Mulpha Norwest — and they will dwarf anything The Hills has ever seen before.

• Week one: How Cherrybrook could look in 2037
• Week two: How Castle Hill could look in 2037
• Week three: How Castle Hill Showground could look in 2037
• Plans to build towers up to 40-storeys on Norwest Marketown

NORWEST Business Park would boast the tallest buildings in the shire under plans being submitted by Mulpha Norwest.

Mulpha owns the lion’s share of developable land around the Norwest metro station, including Norwest Marketown.

It is there that the tallest buildings are proposed, with Mulpha lodging a proposal with The Hills Shire Council for nine slender towers, ranging from four to 40 storeys high (158m), with 1056 dwellings— easily the tallest buildings proposed in The Hills so far.

And according to government and council draft zonings, they are unlikely to be topped.

A total of 26,000 sqm will be allocated for retail such as supermarkets while 84,000 sqm will be for office space, community meeting points and leisure activities.

How the Norwest Precinct could look in 2037. Aerial image provided by cinemairap.com.au

Mulpha is also responsible for The Greens, a residential development on the opposite site of Solent Circuit featuring 12 buildings.

The tallest of these are proposed to be 26, 22, and 20 storeys tall.

The Greens would be a mixture of 864 apartments, 2500sq m of commercial space, 1500sq m of retail, a 1500sq m gymnasium and a 500sq m childcare centre.

The buildings would be separated by parks and open spaces.

Mulpha is currently working on further plans that are expected to show how its significant land holdings will interconnect with each other and the future Norwest metro station, which is expected to be released in the coming months.

They are not the only tall buildings coming to the precinct, with approval already granted for Capital Corporation’s The Esplanade — two 19-storey and 20-storey towers housing 247 apartments, 6000sq m of retail space and three levels of commercial suites.

This is being built on the current site of the Sydney Ice Arena, with construction expected to begin later this year.

Six buildings have also been given recent approval by The Hills Shire Council at Maitland Place, close to Norwest Lake.

One of the six buildings could stand up to 25 storeys high. The development would house 370 dwellings and include 6700sq m of commercial space.

These developments will go a long way to meeting the targets of an additional 5000 extra homes and 11,450 new jobs around the station by 2037.

Addressing the sudden surge in tall buildings in the Shire, and local backlash to the plans, The Hills Shire Council’s strategic planning group manager Michael Edgar said increasing population densities and building heights around the future metro stations was the only way to protect the amenity of the rest of The Hills while meeting the state government mandated population targets.

Artist impression of the Norwest City development, with The Greens in the background.

It also will mean far less traffic being added to local roads than detached housing projects.

“Forty storey buildings today may not make sense in your mind, but we need to be forward-thinking,” he said.

“The hinterland areas, the single lot housing, will be largely unaffected.

“We need to get the regional traffic off the local roads. It makes sense to do more around these transport nodes then make the hinterland do more.”

Next week: Bella Vista

Artist impression of The Greens, Solent Circuit, Baulkham Hills.