Coles Plans Neutral Bay Shoptop Masterplan

The supermarket-turned-developer trend continues with the latest shoptop precinct by a grocer proposed at Neutral Bay.

Coles Group Property Developments has lodged plans for a four-stage precinct at 41-53 Grosvenor Street in the North Sydney suburb on what was formerly a Woolworths site.

With Titanium Property Investment, Coles commissioned SJB Architects to design the seven-storey tiered mixed-use site. 

Six storeys of apartments will be built over the 3429sq m of retail space if the development is approved.

The residential component will offer 72 apartments, 11 one-bedrooms, 27 two-bedroom units, 30 three-bedroom and 4 four-bedroom apartments.

Coles said that attempts to redevelop the site had been ongoing since it was identified as the Grosevenor Lane Car Park Precinct in 2014, but “due to a range of commercial, financial and other circumstances, this vision has not been able to be realised over the past decade”. 

The latest plans submitted to North Sydney Council propose the demolition of existing structures and the construction of a seven-storey housing development with a supermarket, liquor store and retail premises on the ground floor. 

The proposed development will surround a public plaza and will also deliver four levels of underground basement parking, with 267 spaces available to the public and the remainder of the 351 spots for private residents. 

▲ Coles is spending an estimated $169 million to build the Neutral Bay precinct.

Coles proposed a stepped building to minimise the overshadowing of the planned plaza and promised to design, construct and fund the construction on a public plaza on council land, including public domain improvements to Grosvenor Lane.

It is the latest supermarket development project as Coles and Woolies vie for development space.

“Supermarkets have played in this development space, intermittently, over the years but more recently they seem to be more directly engaged,” Robert Papaleo, Colliers national director for build-to-rent told The Urban Developer.

Elsewhere, Fabcot, the development arm of supermarket giant Woolworths, launched plans for a new retail precinct in a suburb of Liverpool, south-west of Sydney, this year.