Aqualand unveils new vision for Central Barangaroo

Detailed plans of the final development at Barangaroo show the future of Sydney and the city’s last waterfront apartments.

The developers behind the final stage of Sydney’s multimillion-dollar Barangaroo development have unveiled their plans for the waterfront suburb and their goal to “deliver the most desirable commercial office accommodation in Australia”. Detailed plans were given exclusively to The Australian following the developer providing a first look into the future of the harbour front suburb on Sunday.

The Australian can reveal the new space will comprise six office towers with a total of 88,000sq m available to commercial tenants.

Aqualand’s Barangaroo project director, Rod McCoy, said the commercial offices would employ a “campus- style” theme, leveraging largely low-rise buildings directly above the new metro station.

“Our assessment of the post-Covid demand for commercial office space is that businesses will place a premium on amenity, on collaboration spaces, access to fresh air, and a connection to high-quality outdoor spaces and parkland – all qualities that Aqualand will deliver at Central Barangaroo,” he said.

While Barangaroo Metro station is on track to be open and running in 2024 before Central Barangaroo is complete in the latter half of 2027, the area will still be accessible, Mr McCoy said.

“The Barangaroo Metro Station has been designed with two entrances – one that will open into the public domain at Nawi Cove, and another that will open directly into the below ground retail at the northern end of Barangaroo Central,” he said.

An artists’s impression of Central Barangaroo.

The end value of Central Barangaroo site is $2.5bn with an economic value of $5bn. The construction, which will begin in the second half of 2023, will provide 22,000 jobs.

Mr McCoy said the development had delivered on its promise to build a two hectare harbour park and maintain 50 per cent of the development as a publicly assessable domain.

“Central Barangaroo would be a place for people, where the buildings will be surrounded by new parkland and designed to create one of Australia’s finest public spaces,” he said. “Our goal is to create a truly exceptional precinct that is beautiful, welcoming to all, with a variety of well designed indoor and outdoor public spaces that can be enjoyed at all times of the year.”

The residential component of the development includes a single apartment tower comprising 13,000sq m where a total of between 40 and 80 apartments will be for sale. It’s understood Aqualand may lean toward a lower number of apartments as the trend of developing larger, luxurious apartments continues to grow.

The end value of Central Barangaroo site is $2.5bn with an economic value of $5bn. The construction, which will begin in the second half of 2023, will provide 22,000 jobs.

The retail component of the development is being delivered in partnership with Scentre Group’s Westfield, which will operate a 35,000sq m retail space. An underground retail component will be directly connected to the Metro station.

The precinct is lower than was originally planned when a consortium of Grocon, Scentre and Aqualand won the rights to the harbourside plot in 2019. Grocon planned for a super-tall tower but alleges it was stymied by Infrastruc­tureNSW, which struck a deal with James Packer’s Crown Resorts and Lendlease to protect sight lines from their towers at Barangaroo South.

Grocon is pursuing a $270m claim against INSW for its role in the deal, arguing that the state body failed to issue sight lines until after it sold its stake to Aqualand. INSW is defending the claim.