‘Legacy project’: New private school, hospital and uni plans hang by a thread

Tech entrepreneur Peter Crown’s ambitious – and debt-laden – plans for one of the largest landholdings in the Southern Highlands hangs in the balance after lenders seized control of the Berrima property empire.

The move puts on hold previously unreported plans by Crown to build a technology and education park on the outskirts of Berrima, called Silicon Highlands, complete with a university, private high school and a hospital.

An impression of the technology and education park as shown in Silicon Highlands proposal.

Receivers took control of Crown’s corporate entities behind the vast farmland holdings hours after The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age revealed the extent of Crown’s debt and a slew of legal battles behind the scenes.

The world-class technology and education park was an unsolicited proposal to Wingecarribee Shire Council, billing itself as a “legacy project” for the Crown family on 225 hectares of what is currently zoned rural farmland at the edge of Berrima.

It would include a Southern Highlands university campus in partnership with Wollongong University, a preschool to year 12 independent school in partnership with Frensham College, as well as a regional performing arts centre, regional sports centre, technology campus, and health and innovation precinct with a hospital.

An excerpt of the Silicon Highlands proposal shows a map of the park, including the land north west of the Old Hume Highway owned by the Medich family.Credit:

Sweetening the deal is its location adjoining council’s draft masterplan of recent years for a regionally significant employment precinct called Southern Highlands Innovation Park, an estimated 20,000 new jobs, and more than $20 million in local and regional infrastructure upgrades.

There are letters of support for the concept from Frensham’s head Geoff Marsh, and Wollongong University’s interim vice-chancellor Professor John Dewar.

The Silicon Highlands proposal would occupy a small part of the vast farmlands Crown purchased from Hume Coal in 2021 for $101 million thanks to financing of $120 million and interest rates that ranged from 12.47 per cent on the first loan and up to a default rate of 72 per cent on the third loan.

The main lender, Merricks Capital, agreed to a loan of about $60 million after the National Australia Bank withdrew initial in-principal loan approval. A second and third lender extended financing of up to $56 million.

The loans were intended to be short-term given that almost 500 hectares, known as Mereworth, was quickly on sold to father and son property investors Roy and Anthony Medich for almost $50 million.

The Berrima land aggregation of Peter Crown has been placed in receivership.Credit: Tim Bauer/LinkedIn

But three years after that sale, Merricks has tapped Newpoint Advisory to step in as receivers on the back of their loan agreement, taking control of 10 corporate entities behind the property empire.

The appointment comes a month after Crown had enlisted CBRE to sell the largest farm in the land aggregation, known as Evandale. That 585-hectare property was expected to sell for more than the estimated $50 million still outstanding to Merricks, but had not hit the market officially.

The 40-year-old investor, who prefers to be known as a farmer, retains control of his family investment office Coronam, and other tech and property interests, including his historic Sutton Forest farm Newbury Hall that he bought in 2023 for $38.5 million.

However, Crown disputes the legitimacy of the appointment of receivers to the Berrima holdings.

“We are vigorously pursuing that matter through the courts,” said a spokesman for the Crown family.

“This follows a lengthy dispute with Merricks in which we have been deliberately frustrated at every step in our attempts to refinance these loans with other lenders.”

Crown has been enmeshed in a few legal battles of late. Earlier this month a year-long court stoush between Crown and his second and third lenders was finally settled in court and Crown ordered to pay out the lenders more than $14 million.

Crown’s joint venture with billionaire Robert Whyte over the redevelopment of a $28.6 million former quarry near Camden has also found its way to the Supreme Court after the venture’s holding company Macarthur Farm Pty Ltd was placed into receivership. In that matter Crown was recently found in breach of trust and in breach of his director’s duties after misappropriating $2.6 million, but that finding has been stayed while he returns to court to dispute the legality of that receivership.

As Crown fronts up to his various court appointments, and his Bentley-driving wife Vanessa Crown awaits settlement on the sale of her almost $24 million Bronte house, Southern Highlands locals are left wondering whether their ambitious plans for Silicon Highlands were too good to be true.

Even if the receivers are willing to pursue land rezoning to make way for Silicon Highlands, the ambitious project is unlikely to progress in its current state.

The proposal seen by the Herald itemises five parcels of land to be rezoned to make way for Silicon Highlands, but Crown doesn’t own all of them.

One of the pivotal parcels, a significant 62-hectare block, slated to be the town centre and health and medical precinct set between the Hume Motorway and Old Hume Highway, was part of the Mereworth property that was sold to the Medich family three years ago.

The Medichs are not in a joint venture with Crown, but a caveat on title reveals that when they bought it Crown was given an option to buy it back. That option expired in June last year.

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