Sydney's emerging mid-town to get $250m hotel
Sydney developers Allen Linz and Warren Duncan will start construction late next year on a $250 million hotel joint-venture at 375 Pitt Street, timing the development to tap the slew of infrastructure and other commercial projects boosting the city’s emerging mid-town precinct.
Mr Linz’s Rebel Property and Mr Duncan’s Everest Property are now seeking final approval and a builder, and expect to start construction by November on the Crone-designed four-star hotel with more than 300 rooms in a 35-level tower that will rise out of a recycled brick mixed-use podium.
Having previously controlled the Pitt Street site and developed plans and a stage one approval for the scheme, they acquired the site in July and settled the $35-million purchase in October. The expected early-2023 completion would be well-timed to benefit from the extensive development under way in the southern end of the city, Mr Linz said.
“There’s so much happening there, including the Pitt Street metro, which is about 100 metres away from our site across the road,” he said.
“We think the timing is good in terms of the product and offering we’re going to bring to the market, but it’s all about getting approvals, securing a builder and getting going.”
The partners are funding development of the hotel on a podium containing facilities such as gyms, restaurants and co-working space that will tap the growing demand of business travellers in the area sandwiched between Town Hall and Central Station.
Mr Linz said an operator had yet to be selected, but the project gave the chance to bring a new brand into Sydney.
“There are a lot of new and interesting operators that some of us haven’t heard of, operating in America and Europe, who are looking at our market going ‘This is a market that is open in terms of that boutique offering’,” he said.
“We’ve got a lot of discussions going on with some of those operators.”
Their joint development vehicle Sydney Redevelopments 1 Pty Ltd purchased the site with a mortgage to Amal Security Services, a third-party manager of loans for a range of lenders.
The Crone design, chosen out of a design competition, creates a new private laneway that will include an installation by Chris Fox – the artist behind the Interloop installation at Sydney’s Wynyard Station – and will improve circulation through the site.
The mixed-use businesses in the podium will be visible from the hotel lobby and the street level. The podium itself will be built out of recycled brick, in a reference to the former Brickfield Hill brickworks, which provided the construction materials for Old Sydney Town for decades.
“The design excellence process has given us an outstanding result that we wouldn’t have achieved with just one architectural approach,” Mr Duncan said.
“Anyone looking to build an outstanding project in Sydney’s CBD should have confidence in the outcomes of a design process.”
