Aland Pays $100m for Second Toplace Site

Aland has acquired another former Toplace site, this time at Parramatta, as Sydney’s developers clean up the mess left by the disgraced development group. 

Last month, Aland announced it would complete construction and rectification works on a former Toplace site opposite Castle Towers Shopping Centre. 

Aland has now acquired a second site from the dVT Group, administrators of Toplace Pty Ltd, which were appointed to the collapsed developer in 2023.

The $100-million deal for the 5213sq m site at 189 Macquarie Street marks Aland’s biggest individual property acquisition since its inception in 2002.

Work was abandoned on the site in 2017, well before Toplace’s administration. 

At the time, Toplace owner Jean Nassif was locked in a battle with the Parramatta council over three levels of basement parking built without the council’s approval. 

Aland is planning two 30-storey towers on the site comprising about 425 apartments. 

The towers will have a 36,000sq m gross floor area with 317sq m of retail, 715 public and 389 resident carparking spaces, and 1550sq m of communal open space. 

▲ A render of Toplace’s plans for the site (pictured) which would have delivered 613 apartments, according to a 2020-amended DA.

Aland founder and owner Andrew Hrsto said in a statement that the company continued to invest heavily in Parramatta “in line with the State Government’s commitment to employment, lifestyle and amenity in the area”.

The developer is also moving its company headquarters to the new Aland building in the Parramatta CBD.

A design masterplan for 189 Macquarie Street will be developed over the coming months. 

Toplace’s collapse has been heralded as marking the end of the reputational damage of poor building work in highrise apartments in Sydney. 

After a series of stop work and building rectification orders were issued for its developments, Toplace and Jean Nassif were banned from operating, eventually calling in administrators in July, 2023, a month after an arrest warrant was issued for director Nassif over alleged large-scale fraud.

Nassif left Australia for Lebanon in December, 2022.

More reputable developers have continued to take over Toplace’s sites with its Box Hill site coming to market last year and part of its Castle Hill site being acquired by Kassis Homes for a new hotel and residential development.