Greenland narrows search for Sydney tower builder
Chinese developer Greenland will decide on a new builder for its $700 million Greenland Centre apartment project in Sydney within two months after parting ways with construction giant Brookfield Multiplex last month.
“We are committed to finishing the Greenland Centre project,” Greenland Australia’s assistant managing director, Kang Xue, tells The Australian.
“We will honour obligations to our clients who have bought apartments.”
The Shanghai-based developer is due to deliver the 235m-high tower on Bathurst St, housing 478 apartments — 98% of which have already been sold — in 2019.
“It is a complex project — we all know that,” Xue says.
“Greenland Australia has involved reputable Tier-1 engineers and is confident of delivering Sydney’s tallest apartment tower in time. The existing building on Bathurst St is now under demolition, which will finish early next year.”
“We are actively pursuing the most productive way to complete the tower.”
The former Water Board site in the CBD had been left sitting in the “too hard” basket and remained undeveloped for many years, with a heritage-listed building and an existing 1960s tower on the site.
Brookfield Multiplex is no longer building the Lucent development.
It took Greenland more than two years to receive development approval for the project based on an intricate architectural design solution to retain and build around the skeleton of the existing commercial building.
The company has already opened the Primus Hotel on Pitt St as part of the project, which took about 12 months to complete.
Greenland expects to make a decision on a new builder in the next month or two, though it may decide to build the tower itself, Xue says.
The tower, which will be the tallest residential building in Sydney, was designed by architects BVN Donovan Hill and Woods Bagot.
It is the Chinese developer’s first project in Sydney after entering the Australian market in 2013 through the purchase of the site from Brookfield Asset Management for about $100 million.
Greenland has sold 98% of its 478 apartments at the Lucent development.
Apart from the Greenland Centre in Sydney, the company is also the developer of three other tallest residential towers around the world, in London, Los Angeles and China.
Xue says the company’s commitment and capacity to deliver could be demonstrated by its $200 million Lucent project at North Sydney, which is nearly complete six weeks ahead of time.
The Lucent building, at 225 Pacific Highway, comprises 221 apartments along with office space. Buyers began inspections of the apartments from late May, though Lucent is due for settlement later this year.
“Twenty-five per cent of buyers have inspected the building and less than 1% of them have raised defects. You can see that it’s been a very good quality build,” Xue says. “Early completion of build means we are effectively giving buyers more time to settle. So their preparation period before settlement has happened nearly three months before.”
Xue declined to comment on the proportion of overseas buyers in the project, some of which are probably affected by lending restrictions from local banks.
But he says the company is “helping buyers with the paperwork, talking to banks and other funding sources if needed”.
This article originally appeared on www.theaustralian.com.au/property.
