Deicorp Greenlit for 1200 Sydney Apartments

A trio of “landmark” projects in Sydney including a 46-storey tower and a town centre precinct of nearly 500 apartments have been greenlit.

Collectively, the three projects by Deicorp at Melrose Park, Crows Nest and Parramatta will deliver more than 1200 apartments and more than 44,000sq m of retail space. 

The Melrose Park town centre precinct will deliver six buildings of shop-top housing of 6 to 24 storeys. 

A total of 494 apartments will sit atop a five-storey commercial podium that will comprise 30,000sq m of floor space consisting of offices, retail, medical and childcare facilities. 

It will also deliver 1412 commercial and residential carparking spaces. The development will be constructed in two stages.

Plans for Melrose Park were filed with the City of Parramatta in September 2022, and will herald the transformation of this long-established industrial area. 

The developer said that the “locality is about to undergo a rapid transformation into a high-density mixed-use and residential precinct known as Melrose Park North precinct”.

Melrose Park North Precinct has been the subject of an extensive masterplanning process since 2016 when the Melrose Park Northern Structure Plan was adopted by the City of Parramatta. 

The initial structure plan formed the basis of a planning proposal by Deicorp venture partner Payce, which was subsequently submitted to the council.

Payce acquired the site in 2016 for $160 million.

▲ The mixed-use Parramatta towers will have the Parramatta Light Rail on its doorstep.

The second project approved for Deicorp is the 46-level twin tower Cosmopolitan at 34 Hassall Street, Parramatta, which was designed by Sydney-based architecture firm Turner. 

Plans were lodged in February this year for the project, which will feature a raised podium, elevated courtyard garden and retail and hospitality frontages “for commercial tenants and to activate the precinct”.

The third is a 16-storey Crows Nest site that has secured planning-proposal approval. 

Close to the coming Metro station, it has received gazettal after a detailed planning proposal. Plans for a 129-apartment development will now be lodged. 

Deicorp said that “foreshadowed changes to key transport sites might change the planning framework for this project”.

Deicorp chairman Fouad Deiri said the company was “pulling out all stops” to deliver new housing.

This included projects at Tallawong, Showground and Castle Hill in the north-west, and apartments at Parramatta, Melrose Park, Rhodes, Five Dock and the inner-city.

As well as these approvals, Deicorp has a development application filed for a 212-apartment project at Rhodes, designed by the Fender Katsalidis. 

The project would have pedestrian access to Billbergia’s Rhodes Central retail precinct, which is opposite Rhodes train station.