ApartmentsHarrison CaithnessMon 09 Nov 26
Deicorp Makes Bid to Double Yield, Heights of Macquarie Park Scheme
Deicorp wants to double the height and yield of its apartment tower at Macquarie Park approved a year ago.
Under revised plans filed for the site at 161 Herring Road and 13-15 Lachlan Avenue, the scheme would yield 343 apartments, including 39 (11 per cent) affordable, across 34 storeys.
It is a considerable increase on the part-16, part 17-storey shoptop of 181 homes greenlit in 2025.
The 3161sq m site on Dharug land in Sydney’s north is across the road from Macquarie University’s Wallumattagal campus and neighbours a 15-storey student accommodation block.
The site is within walking distance to a metro station and fronts a bus stop, about 12km north-east of the Sydney CBD.
The revised plan would add four basement levels to five already approved, creating space for 332 car spaces across nine levels.
Apartment typology would comprise 72 one, 218 two and 53 three-bedroom apartments.
A four-storey, 12-unit residential block at 161 Herring Road will be demolished as per last year’s approval.
Communal open space would remain at about a quarter of site coverage— 786sq m which is down by just 4 metres.
Almost a third (12 units) of the affordable housing component would be held in perpetuity.
At level 14, a common rooftop would provide a community garden, barbeque area and shade trees.
A concurrent rezoning proposal aims to increase height controls threefold from 45m to 120m and more than double floor space ratios to 10.84:1.
Development costs would increase almost 50 per cent from $121 million to $180 million for Deicorp’s upscaling.
Deicorp has a history of going for double. The developer is responding to submissions on a 22-storey Randwick Club redevelopment, twice the height allowed by council zoning
Earlier this year the builder-developer opened Melrose Central, a $700 million mixed-use component of its $5-billion precinct in the north-west of Sydney.
Macquarie Park remains a hotbed of development;1.5km east of Deicorp’s site, Goodmanplans a 2150-home, 45-to-60-storey precinct near its approved data centre.
As well, six-building, half-a-billion-dollar build-to-rent precinct by the same developer is under way 500m east at 2 Banfield Road.
Two 52 and 60-storey skyscrapers by a Legacy Property and Billbergia joint-venture are under assessment at 15-21 Cottonwood Crescent, less than 300m to the north-east.
And 2km south-east, Link Wentworth has broken broke ground on two 14-storey affordable towers at 6 Halifax Street.
