Scentre Group, Grocon and Aqualand consortium win $2 billion Barangaroo Central contract

The $2 billion Barangaroo Central site in Sydney has finally been signed by the NSW Government with Grocon, Scentre Group and Aqualand selected as the developers for the project. This comes more than a year after they emerged as preferred bidders for the final piece of the Barangaroo precinct.

Details regarding the number of apartments or amount of office spaces have not yet been released, with the deal said to have been signed last week.

The 5.2-hectare Barangaroo Central will become the cultural centre for the waterfront suburb focusing on retail and residential use with an office component built by Grocon. Unlike the Barangaroo South, which features three sky-scraping international towers.

The shopping centre development will be overseen by Scentre while Sydney developer Aqualand will develop apartments at the site.

The signing was due late last year but was delayed due to the complex nature of the deal.

The tender process which started in 2014 has been drawn out with bidders having to navigate a complicated and shifting planning framework for several years.

The masterplan, north of Barangaroo South and the $2 billion Crown Sydney hotel-casino site, reserves three hectares of waterfront land for active cultural and public space on the eastern half of the 5.2-hectare site, which was not achieved without difficulties.

Throughout the masterplan draft in 2014, many public concerns were expressed that a lot of spaces were being moved to suit private interests, namely James Packer’s hotel resort Crown Sydney that had been moved to a spot which was previously meant to be a public park.

In 2016, the people of Millers Point tried to shut down the project in court but lost the case.

The construction of a 71-storey hotel tower at the resort, located between Barangaroo South and Central that houses apartments has progressed.

Development is scheduled for completion in 2024, with the completed Wulugul Walk traversing the entire waterfront expected to open.

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