Sydney high-rise developer Bridgestone Projects says it expects to complete its 296-apartment residential towers in western Sydney by September despite the well-documented supply chain delays and ongoing construction cost increases.
Bridgestone says buyers have snapped up 70 per cent of the four-building, eight to 10-storey project in Castle Hill’s historic Showground precinct, 30km north-west of the Sydney CBD.
“There’s certainly been a lot of movement and attraction to the area,” sales and marketing manager Scott Haggarty said.
“People have got a recipe for their wants and needs, and transport is number one. There is a Metro that will go straight into the city in under 40 minutes. That's a huge change for the Hills district.”
The 10,577-sq-m building site at 16 Middleton Avenue forms part of the ambitious Hills Showground Station Precinct, which received concept approval in January 2021. That plan will eventually deliver up to 1620 homes and about 14,000sq m of non-residential space.
The Hills Showground precinct is one of eight station precincts along the Sydney Metro Northwest urban corridor.
Bridgestone’s development sits on 11 lots acquired in 2017, with street frontages on Fishburn Crescent, and Dawes and Middleton avenues.
The developers first lodged an application for the mix of one, two and three-bedroom apartments with the Hills Shire Council in October of 2018. Approval was granted about 20 months later, but further changes were successfully sought in 2021.
PTW Architects are responsible for the design.
Haggarty said just four of the nine penthouse apartments are still available. A 210-sq-m penthouse sells from $2.02 million.
“There’s quite a product mix, and that means a mix of buyers,” Haggarty said. “There are first home-buyers, upsizers and downsizers as well as upgraders—meaning they've done the calculations on new bathrooms, new kitchens and an upgrade of their current apartment, and in the end they say, why don’t we just buy new.”
He described the market conditions in the industry over the life of construction as “a perfect storm.”
“We’ve just had to absorb it,” he said. “We’ve just had to work with the builder and push through it. We didn’t see we had a choice.”
Sydney’s Metro Northwest urban corridor generally, and the Hills Showground Station Precinct specifically, have become something of a magnet for development west of the capital.
Privately-held developer Deicorp broke ground on its $445-million, four-tower project in the precinct November last year.
Just three months early the state’s Independent Planning Commission signed off on the Sydney-based residential and commercial developer’s 20-storey residential towers.
