Infill Shoptop Apartments Filed for Double Bay

A Sydney developer has put forward plans for an infill shoptop residential development in the sought-after harbourside suburb of Double Bay.

Primo Development Double Bay and Sayed Holdings have teamed to develop a site at 426 to 440 New South Head Road. 

The plans, lodged with the Woollahra council and designed by MHN Design Union, propose a contemporary, part-five and part-six-storey shoptop housing development. 

It comprises 13 apartments above four retail tenancies on the lower ground and ground floors. 

Eight of the apartments would be three bedrooms, two each four and two bedrooms and there would be a single one-bedroom unit.

Planters and a landscaped roof terrace would offset the lack of major landscaping on the constrained site, according to plans. 

The “well-designed and elegant new shoptop housing development” will provide a “sympathetic” transition from the commercial zone to the adjacent residential neighbourhoods, according to the developers. 

▲ The surrounding commercial buildings on New South Head Road are permitted to build up to five storeys.

The site is 3.5km east of Sydney CBD and comprises six allotments. 

It is now occupied by a commercial building and smaller two and three storey shoptop buildings from the Interwar period, which would be demolished under the plans.

There has been renewed interest in Double Bay during the past two years as developers struggle to get anything more than smaller luxury developments over the line. 

As such, sought-after Eastern Sydney suburbs including Double Bay and Rose Bay have attracted attention. 

Some sites on New South Head Road came to market last year while plans were filed for a commericial development from Fortis and in neighbouring Rose Bay, Orosi launched a $250-million residential project.