James Packer’s $2 billion development at Barangaroo would be more than double the size of the previously approved hotel over the harbor, according to a plan officially lodged with the state government.
The long-awaited revised concept plan for Barangaroo South, required to move the hotel back onshore, will increase the total floor space of the precinct by 8.5%, reports the Sydney Morning Herald, citing the development company in charge of the project, Lend Lease.
This is largely due to the size of Crown’s casino-hotel complex, which is seeking a total floor space of up to 77,500 square metres.
The final plans for all of Barangaroo, including yet to be lodged changes to the central portion of the 22-hectare site, have a total development floor space of more than 681,000 square metres. This is more than double the 330,000 square metres proposed in the original 2005 design brief.
Lend Lease’s Barangaroo South concept plan, known as “modification 8”, also sets out how the company’s final residential towers will be incorporated into the reworked precinct.
Italian Pritzker Prize-winning architect Renzo Piano had been enlisted to design the three towers, collectively dubbed One Sydney Harbour, with a combined total of about 750 apartments.
“A city development of three luxury residential high-rise towers in such a location is, in this climate, a rare opportunity,” Mr Piano said.
Lend Lease’ Barangaroo South managing director Andrew Wilson said the “elegant and simple” 250-metre, 220-metre and 107-metre apartment blocks were intended to compliment Mr Packer’s 270-275 metre “diva on the harbour”.
“It was very important for us that the Renzo Piano buildings, the One Sydney Harbour collection, really supported that [Crown building] rather than trying to compete with that,” Mr Wilson said.
Mr Wilson said Lend Lease was hoping the concept plan would be approved “pre Christmas”. The three towers and Crown complex will also be subject to individual development applications, which have not yet been lodged.
Crown Resorts chief executive Rowen Craigie said it would now begin its own planning application processes with the Department of Planning and Environment.
The Crown complex is to be located on land earmarked for parkland before Lend Lease agreed to a state government request to move the hotel over the harbour back onshore.
Mr Wilson said the “rejigging” of the site while maintaining 50 per cent of the precinct as public open space was the “big puzzle we’ve been trying to solve”.
Lend Lease looked at five different relocation options for the hotel, including Barangaroo Central and on top one of its commercial towers, before settling on its proposed waterfront site, he said.
“It’s taken a long time to do but we have to get it right, because it’s going to be here for decades,” Mr Wilson said.
The concept plan had also delayed due to a dispute between Lend Lease and the NSW government over the profit share agreement for the site.
“We’ve all agreed it’s the appropriate time to lodge and move forward,” Mr Wilson said.
A Department of Planning and Environment spokeswoman said it was “reviewing the modification for adequacy and making arrangements for its public exhibition in the usual way on the Department’s website”.
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