Harry Triguboff to kick-start four major unit complexes in Sydney

Apartments mogul Harry Triguboff will this week kick-start construction of four major unit complexes in Sydney’s suburbs.

Harry Triguboff: ‘I think the market is definitely improving — there is no question.’ Picture: James Horan

Apartments mogul Harry Triguboff will this week kick-start construction of four major unit complexes in Sydney’s suburbs, saying the city is about to suffer a residential shortage due to a lack of building.

Mr Triguboff has been encouraged by the sell-out of his $500m Dee Why Lighthouse apartment complex on Sydney’s northern beaches, where the tower’s 351 units have achieved strong prices.

The highest price paid was $2.875m for a three-bedroom apartment on level 15, while the last five apartments on levels eight and nine of the Howard Avenue tower sold for an average of $1.289m.

“I am starting construction of all of these at once. I think the market is definitely improving — there is no question,” a buoyant Mr Triguboff told The Australian.

He said there was a lack of residential stock in Sydney.

He expected to benefit because other developers had to pre-sell apartments before their lenders allowed them to start construction.

“They have to pre-sell, I don’t, I build.”

Meriton’s Dee Why Lighthouse complex achieved strong prices.

Across the city, Mr Triguboff is starting construction of 100 apartments in suburban Mascot near Sydney Airport, and closer to the city he is building 300 apartments in Rosebery. In the east he will push the button on 1000 apartments in Pagewood, and he plans 600 units in the northwest at North Ryde. The Meriton founder foreshadowed more construction starts to come.

In Queensland, the billionaire is half-way through construction of The Ocean, a 73-level complex in Surfers Paradise with 722 units including 319 serviced apartments.

He laments that he cannot visit the site because of border restrictions.

“I am building the biggest development in Queensland and I can’t go,” he said.

Mr Triguboff’s Brisbane and Gold Coast serviced apartment complexes are doing much better than his many in Sydney.

“In Brisbane, we have the top position for a serviced apartment at reasonable prices,” he said, adding that generally the serviced apartment market was improving.

Buoyed by the strong response to his Dee Why tower, where 70 per cent of buyers were owner-occupiers and a further 75 per cent hail from the local area, Mr Triguboff said he would look to buy more sites.

In Sydney’s Little Bay he is hoping to start construction within three years at his near-beachfront site. The site has approval for 400 apartments but he is hoping for more.

The Lighthouse project, on a 1.5ha site with $130m worth of commercial and retail space, has just won a Property Council of Australia 2020 award.

The national sales manager for Mr Triguboff’s Meriton, James Sialepis, said building the basement with more than 1000 car-parking spaces was the most difficult project in the company’s long history given there was a very high water content in the soil.