Hotelier Condemns Darling Harbour Tower Approval

Australian hotelier Jerry Schwartz has launched a broadside after the approval of Mirvac’s controversial $700-million redevelopment of the Harbourside Shopping Centre in Sydney’s Darling Harbour.

The NSW Independent Planning Commission signed off on the state significant development comprising mixed-use, retail, commercial and residential development, as well as 8200sq m of public domain works.

The residential component of Mirvac’s revised plans include the demolition of the 1980s-era shopping centre, to be replaced with a new residential, retail, dining and entertainment precinct, and the construction of a 153m tower with 357 apartments.

It has been Mirvac’s longstanding vision to redevelop the centre along these lines.

The approval follows a failed attempt to develop the site in 2016, when Mirvac submitted plans for an apartment tower or a commercial tower along with the revamped shopping centre.

Mirvac re-lodged its plans for the site in 2019, proposing a commercial office above the redeveloped shopping centre. The established shopping centre has been a part of Sydney’s popular harbour precinct for more than 30 years.

Mirvac purchased the property for $252 million in 2013 and is the long-term leaseholder of the site.

The approved plans, featuring 42 levels of apartments, prompted a scathing attack from the owner of the neighbouring Sofitel Darling Harbour, Jerry Schwartz, who said Mirvac’s project would devalue his 590-room hotel as well as the precinct.

Schwartz, who heads up the Schwartz Family Company, the largest privately owned hotel group in Australia with 14 hotels and over 4000 rooms, purchased the Sofitel Darling Harbour in 2017 for $360 million.

Schwartz said Mirvac’s latest development goes against the urban design concept of Darling Harbour, “which is meant to be a tourism and entertainment precinct and not residential”.

“That plan states clearly that developments should ‘encourage the development of a variety of tourist, educational, recreational, entertainment, cultural and commercial facilities within that area’,” Schwartz said.

“It says expressly that all other kinds of development should be prohibited.

“The [state] government has an obligation to uphold the objections of City of Sydney and Darling Harbour’s major tenants, who invested heavily into the precinct based on the provisions of the long-established and fully documented development plan.”

Schwartz has objected to the proposal on numerous occasions saying the views for residents of One Darling Harbour as well as guests at the nearby Ibis and Novotel hotels will be affected.

Mirvac said it was pleased that the Independent Planning Commission had granted concept approval, adding it would “continue to work through the details around the final conditions”.

The developer has maintained the delivery of residential dwellings on the doorstep of the Harbour CBD and within the Innovation Corridor would provide a significant boost to Sydney’s supply.

The redevelopment is expected to deliver more than 4000 jobs in the long-term and approximately 2100 construction jobs during the building phase.