James Packer settles on Crown apartment for $72 million

James Packer has settled on his luxury, two-storey apartment in Crown Resort’s One Barangaroo tower for more than $72 million, smashing his own national single apartment price record.

The gaming billionaire’s purchase in his flagship residential building was announced to the ASX four years ago at more than $60 million, setting a record at the time which remained unbroken until earlier this year, when former garbo Ian Malouf purchased the Boyd penthouse atop the ANZ Tower for $60 million.

James Packer has settled on his apartment in One Barangaroo for $72 million.Credit: Nick Moir, Getty

Settlement on the Packer purchase is expected to further recalibrate luxury values in the CBD’s harbourside apartment market, given the more than 20 per cent jump in price.

A floorplan of the Packer apartment obtained by The Sydney Morning Herald reveals the two-level spread on the 48th and 49th floors of One Barangaroo features a grand entry foyer and an open curved staircase that overlooks a vast open-plan living area with a bar room. There are double-height glass walls that span both levels with uninterrupted views to the north.

The lower level also includes a formal dining room with seating for 12 and a television lounge room, both with views to the west, and a separate home cinema. A separate home office has its own en suite.

To the east there is a casual dining room that leads to the kitchen with a butler’s pantry, separate laundry and a self-contained staff apartment.

One of the apartments in Crown’s One Barangaroo.Credit:

Upstairs there are formal and informal lounge rooms, three guest bedrooms each with an en suite, a gymnasium and spa, a parents’ retreat with its own open-plan living area, and “his and her” walk-in wardrobes and en suites.

Crown’s completion of the building this year has seen almost $1 billion worth of off-the-plan apartment purchases settled, including Packer’s most recent apartment for the exact price of $72,229,573.

Stamp duty on the purchase is just shy of $5 million.

When Packer’s purchase was revealed in 2017, he said the building’s 2021 completion would mark a permanent return to his Sydney home town, with bedrooms for his children from his marriage to Erica Baxter.

However, doubts were cast on whether he would ever live in the apartment given the controversy around Crown’s casino licence and a potential sell-down of his stake in the company.

An image of an apartment in One Barangaroo before it was sold.Credit: FloodSlicer Pty Ltd

Crown’s NSW casino licence at Barangaroo was suspended in January after a damning public inquiry into its operations. The licence is yet to be reinstated.

Within months of the outbreak of COVID-19 in the early part of 2020, Crown’s share price fell to a low of $6.12, down from $11.45 five years ago.

Packer’s right-hand man, Ben Tilley, has also settled on his apartment, a far smaller 191-square-metre pad of two bedrooms, but with a prime north-facing aspect.

Mr Packer’s apartment settled in a company name, Victoria Fields, of which he is the sole owner.

Mr Packer is no stranger to Sydney property records. When his Vaucluse mega-mansion La Mer was sold in 2015 it set a national house price record of $70 million.

While Mr Packer’s settlement represents a national apartment price record for a single apartment, a consolidation of the penthouse and sub-penthouse in Lend Lease’s yet-to-be-built Tower 1 development at Barangaroo South exchanged for more than $140 million two years ago.

The buyer of the Renzo Piano-designed consolidation of apartments is yet to be revealed, but sources at the time said the penthouse is expected to be used as their home when completed in late 2023, and the sub-penthouse used as separate living quarters.

Mr Packer’s announced purchase in the Crown Resorts building was followed by a dozen trophy sales in the landmark building. Among the early buyers was venture capitalist Bob Blann, who exchanged on a $41 million whole-floor spread in 2018.

Mary Tartak, wife of rich-lister Tony Tartak of the waste removal giant Bingo Industries, bought a consolidation of two apartments for $40 million, and Hong Kong’s Cheng family patriarch Tony Cheng, who runs the commercial property investment firm NGI Investments, paid $40.75 million for his whole-floor apartment.