Plans Filed for $500m ACT Apartment, Hotel Precinct

Developer JWLand has filed plans for its next project, a $500-million residential precinct on Northbourne Avenue at Braddon in Canberra. 

The 15,607sq m site sits between the Rex Hotel and Haig Park on Northbourne Avenue. 

JWLand bought the site from the ACT’s Suburban Land Agency in 2020 for $28 million. Construction cost for the project has been estimated at $158.2 million with an estimated end value of $500 million. 

The COX Architect-designed plans include six buildings, three with frontages on to Northbourne Avenue and three with frontages to Henty Street.

Buildings 1, 3 and 5 on Northbourne Avenue will each have nine storeys while buildings 3 and 5 will also have a hotel or serviced apartments component.

Buildings 2, 4, and 6 will face Henty Street and will each have six storeys. 

There will be 600 one, two and three-bedroom apartments across all the buildings with 239 hotel rooms across the corner sections of buildings 3 and 5. Both hotels will also have space for for a restaurant. 

There will be 908 carparking spaces within the project across two basement levels.

▲ A render of the hotels planned for JWLand’s Braddon Place project on Canberra's Northbourne Avenue.

JWLand has other projects along Northbourne Avenue with the plans for stage 3 of the Northbourne Village awaiting approval and Stage 4 plans due to be lodged soon. 

JWLand ACT development head Michael Prendergast said that the size of projects that the developer undertook meant they often followed where the government released land.

“At the scales of development that we do, which is precinct scales, the majority of the land that is released and is available for sale is sold by the ACT government,” Prendergast said.

“So it’s either residual land being earmarked for future development or they were community or social housing at very low density so they demolish the housing, relocate the residents and they sell off these large parcels of land in auctions or expressions of interest processes.

“The ACT government has focused on releasing land along Northbourne Avenue over the last few years due to the introduction of the light rail line that they have put down the avenue running to the city.”

When the block including the Braddon Place site was divided up and sold, the ACT government relocated residents from 1288 units in low-density social housing projects. 

The developer is also scheduled to complete The Grounds project in Ivanhoe East in Victoria, a high-end residential project with 100 units and 10 townhouses, by the end of the year. 

JWLand has singalled it will lodge plans for a project at Belconnen in Canberra next to a major bus interchange on a former carpark with 168 spaces. 

The project will be a mix of 550 build-to-sell and 350 build-to-rent apartments.