RSS Feed

Creation Date: Fri, 20 Mar 2009 GMT

No jobs but Sydney's hungry for extra offices

26th Feb 2009

Business leaders have backed a State Government decision to approve a massive expansion of office space at East Darling Harbour despite demand for CBD office space falling to a five-year low.

The equivalent of six Chifley Square towers will built on the harbour's edge after the government signed off on a 30 per cent increase in commercial floor space at Barangaroo.

NSW Premier Nathan Rees said the extra 120,000 square metres of floor space would help "lure" big business to the former Hungry Mile site.

Mr Rees said the 22,000 people who will work and live at Barangaroo when construction is completed in 2020 will have access to the new CBD Metro and a ferry terminal situated in front of the new office towers.

A recent report by the Property Council of Australia revealed CBD office vacancy rates had risen from 4.3 per cent to 5.4 per cent over the previous six months as a consequence of the global financial crisis.

But the organisation's executive director, Ken Morrison, said that by the time Barangaroo is open for business, the economic climate would have changed.

"You need to look beyond the immediate consequence of the global financial crisis and look at the life of this project. Barangaroo is absolutely necessary," Mr Morrison said.

Sydney Chamber of Commerce executive director, Patricia Forsythe, welcomed the approval and Lord Mayor, Clover Moore, said she was pleased with the Premier's commitment to public transport.

However, the architect who won the original design competition for the redevelopment of the former wharf, Philip Thalis, said the increased floor space would turn the site into a sterile business park.

"This approval risks reversing 20 years of success in city making with a plan that's wholly predicated on the narrow interests of commercial floor space to the exclusion of the public interest."

Jano Gibson is the Herald's Urban Affairs Reporter