Fresh Plans Filed for Long-Running Wyong Tower Plan

Long-standing plans to build a resort and shoptop residential tower in the NSW Central Coast tourist town of Wyong have been relaunched. 

The latest stage of the Kooindah Waters Resort, operated by Mercure Hotels, is in the works after KW Resort Management Ltd submitted the revised plans, offering “the right mix of uses and building form in the right place”.

But it has been a long journey to develop the site at 50 Parry Parade.

After presenting draft plans in 2018 for the site and then amending those plans based on council feedback, a development application was eventually filed in 2022. 

That proposal detailed a 25-storey, mixed-use building comprising 97 serviced apartments and 98 residential units, with an architectural roof feature. 

However, after a rejection by the Central Coast Council, a conciliation conference was held and the new amended, downgraded plans are a result of that Section 34 process. 

The latest plans propose a 23-storey mixed-use development with two levels of basement parking, a restaurant, bar and function centre.

▲ Original plans for the site were for 25 storeys and a more extravagant design.

Across five storeys of serviced apartments—levels 2 to 6—would be 80 serviced studio units, with 14 storeys of shoptop housing above that comprising 80 apartments in a mix of one to five bedrooms. 

It would also have a swimming pool, shoptop housing lobby and a large terrace with a private pool for each north-facing penthouse apartment, and a sky bar on level 22, according to the plans filed by Dickson Rothschild. 

The cost of development for the project planned for a  5680sq m site, 1.2km east of Wyong town centre and rail station, is estimated at $86 million.

According to the development application, the proposal will upgrade tourist facilities “to a level where they will now be able to compete with larger venues in the Newcastle-Sydney-Wollongong region for events and conferences”.

“The addition of residential apartments into the mixed-use tower will improve the off-season viability of the precinct, create a feasible design to achieve upgraded infrastructure, enhance the economic benefits of this facility to its community and provide facilities of a world-class standard to a growing Central Coast,” it said.

The Central Coast has been booming since the pandemic, with both tourists and seachangers flocking to the area, alongside developers. 

Bathla has lodged plans in the past year for two projects in the region, a smaller Canton Beach shoptop apartment block, and a 400-apartment masterplan at The Entrance, while this year advertising mogul John Singleton lodged plans for a $32 million 60-key hotel in Gosford.