Urbis Think Tank
Macquarie Park and North Ryde corridor delivering major residential TOD projects
Urbis have been involved in half a dozen recent major projects in the Macquarie Park/North Ryde corridor. Originally leveraging off Macquarie University, this corridor has emerged as a sought after scientific and technology business park over the past 10-15 years, but it is the major residential projects making the current headlines.
Stage 1 of Toga’s ’Macquarie Central’ residential project at 128 Herring Rd was recently released and 90% of the 244 apartments offered were sold in a single morning. Typical 50 square metre 1 bed apartments with parking sold for $515,000, while typical 70 square metre 2 bed apartments sold for $630,000. This represents a very healthy $8000 – $9000/square metre. 3 bed apartments were less popular during the initial release.
Demographic analysis undertaken by Urbis Social Planning identified that Macquarie Park has a young adult population (average 31 years) with few children. A very high proportion of the population are overseas (Asian) born with university qualifications. The proportions of lone person and apartment households (40% and 73% respectively) are very high by Sydney standards. However, contrary to some market expectations, the majority of apartments were sold to locals, not overseas investors, with high employment growth and transport accessibility being major attractors.
The emergence of a high density localised residential apartment market is considered to be a transitory step for the area feeding off ongoing growth in localised education and commercial precincts. In some developments, 1 bedroom apartments will make up 50% of the total yield. This is comparatively high to other high density residential locations such as Zetland and Waterloo where 1 bedroom apartments on average account for 35%-40% of development yields.
Hot on the heels of the Macquarie Central Project are applications for major residential projects by EGC Funds (‘Allengrove’, 196 apartments & ‘Whiteside’, 213 apartments ), St Hilliers (232 apartments) and the Stamford Plaza Redevelopment (625 apartments in 7 buildings which range in scale from 8 to 22 storeys). Pre-application interest has been very strong across all projects.
Urbis has also been engaged by the NSW Transport Construction Authority to facilitate the rezoning and development of lands surrounding North Ryde Station for a mix of commercial, retail and residential uses. The project represents a landmark transit oriented development (TOD) in Sydney, delivering a mix of residential, commercial and recreational land uses within 800 metres of the railway station. Urbis’ role includes the management and coordination of a large, multi-disciplinary team including social planners, property economists and environmental specialists.
Based on the success of the other residential projects in the Macquarie Corridor there is every reason to be positive about strong take-up when this project comes to market as apartments in well-located mixed use TODs are extremely hot property right now.