Value for both owners and investors paramount for developer

ALAND tries to achieve both yield and capital appreciation with its properties, and offers value for owner-occupiers as well as investors and downsizers.

Andrew Hrsto, the owner of ALAND Property Development. Picture: Tim Hunter.

ALAND chief executive Andrew Hrsto is aiming to provide entry-level homes for owner-occupiers as well as for investors and downsizers in the fast-growing western Sydney region.

“We start from an empty piece of land and we go right through to delivering the product and after-sales care,” he says.

The company is both a builder and a developer, primarily of apartments although it has recently started working on developments with retail and hotel components, and is also now considering moving into the build-to-rent and student accommodation sectors.

Hrsto says traditionally there was a trade-off between yield and capital appreciation in property owning and investing, and ALAND tries to create a product that provides both.

“That’s what I believe ALAND is today. Our products provide a very good annual return and also have very good capital growth,” he says.

The company’s new Paramount on Parkes development is located in the centre of the western suburbs in Parramatta and Hrsto says it is ALAND’s best project to date.

“It’s in the CBD of Parramatta. It’s only 250m to the station,” he says. “It is the CBD of the western suburbs. Parramatta is on the move. It’s going to be a great global city in the next few years.”

The site was originally a five-storey office tower when ALAND acquired it in 2017 and Paramount on Parkes will be its tallest development so far at 46 storeys.

Hrsto says apartments will range in price from $629,000 for a one-bedroom apartment to $1.3m for a three-bedroom apartment.

The top six floors will be commercial offices, with ALAND’s headquarters on floor 44 when completed.

The decision to devote the top of the building to office space was because Hrsto was concerned that apartments on the upper levels would be too expensive for the current market in Parramatta. “I believe that there is a ceiling to a price point in Parramatta. So the higher you go, the price point also gets higher. I was really concerned that no one would pay that much for a unit,” he says.

Hrsto believes ALAND’s developments help to create a sense of community for the people who live there. For instance, it has built an entire community in its Schofield Gardens development, which will consist of 1700 apartments when finished.

“If you have a look at the buildings that have already been established in Schofields and all the amenities in there, it’s just a great family environment,” he says.

Open space at the heart of the development accommodates a children’s playground, communal barbecues, outdoor seating, herb gardens and maturing fruit trees, providing an informal area for birthday parties and other family occasions.

Schofields is a fast-growing urban centre in Sydney’s northwest. “This greenfield development has proved amazingly popular with essential workers, young families and investors because it is close to modern services such as shops, public transport, schools and natural bushland,” he says.

An economic report by the National Australia Bank describes western Sydney as an economic powerhouse primed for further growth.

One in 11 Australians already live in Greater Western Sydney and over the next decade the region is predicted to grow by 25 per cent to 3.2 million.

The region is already responsible for one-third of Sydney’s gross regional product and is the third largest economy in Australia. Its importance will be further boosted once the new Western Sydney Airport opens in late 2026.

“[It] will be a game-changing piece of infrastructure for those living and working in GWS,” NAB says in its report, Australia’s Engine Room Greater Western Sydney: A story of entrepreneurship & ambition.

“An easy-access bridge to global markets for local industries and businesses, it should lock the region’s manufacturing and logistics sectors into a new phase of growth, creating 35,000 jobs once open and pushing $24bn into the region annually.”

Along with greenfield developments, ALAND has also been successful in taking over distressed sites, where another developer or builder has started construction but hasn’t been able to finish it.

It took over the Hoxton development in Liverpool, which had sat vacant for 17 years.

The site, well-known to the local community, was excavated by the original developer almost two decades ago but construction stopped in 2002. Since then, the site has been sold and purchased by another developer, who made no progress, before ALAND acquired it in late 2020.

“We came in and we finished it off. It was an eyesore for many years,” Hrsto says.

Distressed sites usually have a “stigma” about them so they need to be rebranded, Hrsto says.

The company recently made the news for taking over construction and rectification of the former Toplace development site opposite Castle Towers Shopping Centre in northwest Sydney.

Toplace, founded by Jean Nassif, had built a near-$1.5bn portfolio of development sites and real estate investments across Sydney before its collapse earlier this year.

“We’re not the developers on that one, we’re purely the builders,” Hrsto says.