How Toga Turned ‘Murder Mall’ into its Legacy Precinct

Toga’s Surry Hills Village is unrecognisable from its past as the infamous “Murder Mall”—a shadowy relic of poor urban planning. It was the kind of place where locals rushed through their grocery shop, dodging dim corners while glancing over a shoulder before making a swift exit. The nickname wasn’t just dark humour—it reflected how people felt. The old centre on Cleveland Street, where Surry Hills meets Redfern, made visitors uneasy. Fixing that meant more than improving design—it was about transforming the 1.2ha site i nto somewhere people wanted to stay rather than escape. “Murder Mall told you it felt unsafe, and everybody deserves a safe place to shop,” says SJB director of architecture Emily Wombwell. “Good design lifts the spirit and makes it a nice experience.” Now, with its estimated $500-million redevelopment into a “Toga legacy project”, the site has evolved into a true village , with luxury residences, a boutique hotel, a commercial office hub, a revitalised shopping precinct and inviting public spaces. Natural light floods the formerly dark site, drawing locals to linger rather than leave—it ’ s become a destination not a detour. ▲ Tom Roe photos showing the residents ’ garden and Wunderlich Lane. In the words of Toga managing director Allan Vidor: “It’s rare to find a development that offers a balance of luxury residential, green space and location alongside the city’s finest restaurants, bars, boutique retailers, art, music and culture. “We have brought this all together in one unique destination.” The deal that started it all In 2015, Toga acquired the site for about $95 million, taking over an ageing shopping centre anchored by Coles. But before that, it was home to the historic Wunderlich factory, known for producing the pressed metal ceilings and decorative columns that shaped much of Sydney’s early architecture. A design excellence competition was held in 2018 , with SJB and Studio Prineas winning the bid to lead the architectural vision, and Aspect Studios to be the project ’ s landscape architects. While much of the site has been reimagined, elements of its past remain. ▲ Thoroughfare of Wunderlich Lane flanked by The Eve Hotel and the commercial building. The heritage-listed building at the corner of Cleveland and Baptist streets has been preserved and its original brickwork restored, ensuring the development remains connected to its history. The most mixed of mixed-use developments “I think we definitely peaked at the ‘mixed-use’ of this project,” Wombwell says. The precinct has been divided into seven “villages” with each given a distinct brick colour, reinforcing a sense of place. Public interfaces are finished with deep brown brick, a nod to the NSW Mounted Police headquarters across the street. The six-storey commercial block uses speckled grey brick, the 11,520sq m of residential buildings are mostly cased in white brick, ( seen in top image ), and the five-storey Eve Hotel stands out in blonde brick. The hotel is perhaps the most surprising addition to project—it wasn’t even part of the original plan. ▲ Anson Smart photos of The Eve Hotel lobby. Toga does have a history of transformative hotel projects in the area, redeveloping the disused Crown Street Women’s Hospital into the Adina Apartment Hotel Surry Hills in 1994. This mixed-use project set a precedent for integrating residential, retail and commercial spaces. More recently, through a joint venture with Singapore’s Far East Orchard Limited, Toga’s TFE Hotels identified a gap in Sydney’s boutique hotel market, drawing on its success with The Calile in Brisbane (developed by Calile Malouf Investments). “It was meant to be another residential block,” Wombwell says. “But with Toga’s experience managing The Calile, they saw the opportunity to create something different, a hotel that brings a completely new energy to the precinct.” With open-air balconies, breezeways and a rooftop garden and pool, the hotel is designed for climate rather than isolation.“We really pushed for open-air circulation instead of air-conditioned corridors,” Wombwell says. “So you always feel the temperature, the time of day. It’s a sensory connection that you don’t get in a sealed hotel experience.” Guests don’t enter through a traditional hotel lobby. Instead, they step into a grand hall from Baptist Street into a light-filled connection point that links retail and hospitality. ▲ The boutique Eve Hotel has 102 luxury rooms. “If you’re arriving in Sydney, this is where you come first, before you go and see the big showpiece landmarks,” Wombwell says. “You get to feel the grain of the city, understand the community and then explore from there.” Rather than a monolithic residential block, Surry Hills Village is designed as a network of smaller communities. Across four buildings, 122 apartments are clustered into self-contained “villages”, each with its own lobby, entrance and identity. “Every apartment building has its own address,” Wombwell says. “That’s a key thing, to break it down into communities and give them true addresses.” Along Marriott Street, six terrace houses integrate into the streetscape, each with its own front door, bin room and fire escape. ▲ Baptist Street passersby can look through the big windows into the hotel ’ s Bar Julius. These terraces serve a dual role, providing residential-scale frontage while transitioning into the hotel above. Beyond its residential and hospitality components, the 4260sq m commercial hub was designed with sustainability and innovation in mind. The cross-laminated timber (CLT) building facing Cleveland Street was prefabricated by timer engineers Wiehag in Austria and installed onsite. “Every single penetration for pipes and services had to be designed and coordinated before shipping to Australia, requiring extensive upfront planning,” SJB project lead Rachel Yabsley says. At the time, CLT was still emerging in Australia. “This was around 2020 when it was being designed and it arrived in 2021—during the wettest year ever,” Yabsley says. Now, the commercial builing accommodates Australian fashion house Aje, with multi-purpose function venue Saltbox, opening soon. ▲ The restored heritage front on Cleveland Road overshadowed by the completed commercial building. Surry Hills Village has attracted a mix of restaurants, bars and boutique retailers. Among them are Regina La Pizzeria, from the team behind LuMi Dining, featuring a one-of-a-kind Fazzone pizza oven, and R by Raita Noda, offering premium Japanese omakase. Gelato Messina has joined the precinct, while Sydney-based Saardé has opened its flagship store, and high-end beauty salon The Parlour Room has expanded from Clovelly. The most visually striking venue is Olympus, a Greek-inspired restaurant from the team behind The Apollo and Cho Cho San. At its centre sits a 50-year-old bougainvillea tree, a defining feature of the space. “The tree was always the centrepiece of the site,” says Yabsley. “We called it the Oculus because of the big round aperture that everyone looked down onto. It was always this grounding centre.” With a fully operable roof, Olympus can easily transition between indoor and outdoor dining. ▲ Surry Hills Village looking towards Sydney ’ s CBD. Beneath it all, a basement carpark services residents, visitors and retailers, with a dedicated Coles loading dock and 12m diameter vehicle turntable—to manage deliveries efficiently in the tight inner-city site. While much of the precinct is labelled “luxury”, the everyday shopping options make it a place for everyone. On any given lunchtime, a steady stream of life moves through the precinct. Parents with prams pause at cafes, fashion designers on their way to work pass hospitality workers starting their shifts, and dogs—so many dogs with their owners. Despite being new, walking through the development, it feels as though it’s always been here. “I don’t think it asks the area to change—I think it invites the area in,” Wombwell says. “Hopefully, this is future heritage,” Wombwell says. “It’s a place where people create memories, where both locals and visitors feel at home.”

How Toga Turned ‘Murder Mall’ into its Legacy Precinct

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