Mirvac Revises $147m Green Square Commercial Towers

Mirvac has moved to shore up its Green Square developments in the wake of Covid to provide more flexible floor plans across its commercial and mixed-use developments.

The developer, who has sites at 377-495 Botany Road,and 960a Bourke Street at Zetland, has applied for changes to the Development Control Plan for the $13-billion Green Square urban renewal precinct.

Mirvac wants to include a sky bridge between the two commercial buildings on levels 2 to 9 in order to provide bigger floorplates in a heavily Covid-impacted office sector.

“Information provided by Mirvac to Ethos Urban indicated that current levels of enquiry in Green Square to date has been for larger users looking for campus-sized floorplates of 2000sq m or larger,” City of Sydney documents stated.

“Tenant interest has ranged from occupiers from the finance sector, education (universities), large corporates for ‘back of house’ operations as well as Government departments.”

According to City of Sydney documents the changes would “increase flexibility, facilitate development and attract tenants that will fulfil the vision for the Town Centre” but while the development control plan would be amended, it would still subject to the development application process.

The increase in height resulting from the sky bridge changes would enable the buildings to be effectively joined-up up below level 10 to create large ‘campus style’ commercial floor plates of about 2700sq metres.

“The sites are located in the Green Square Town Centre (Town Centre), the civic and economic heart of the Green Square Urban Renewal Area and the southern parts of the local area,” the report stated.

“The vision for the town centre is for a resilient, lively and unique urban place, with jobs, well-serviced residences, community facilities and open space.”

Ethos Urban’s economic assessment estimates that Green Square and City South Village will cater to an extra 15,200 jobs between 2021 and 2036.

To meet non-residential floor space demand about 916,620sq m of commercial floor space will be required by 2036, and Mirvac’s Botany Road development is the only purely commercial offering in the Green Square town centre.

Almost a third of jobs projected for the town centre will be accommodated in the Mirvac commercial towers. More than 2000 workers will be employed on the Botany Road site.

Mirvac has also applied for change of land use for both the commercial towers site at Botany Road, and a mixed-use precinct at 960a Bourke Street.

Under the proposed changes the land uses in the commercial towers would be broadened to include education and child care facilities, medical facilities and function space.

A cinema had been slated for Mirvac’s mixed-use residential building at Bourke Street site, but “evolving preferences for entertainment and Covid-19 are affecting the cinema market”.

Mirvac has applied to broaden land uses to include galleries, artisan food and drink and indoor recreation facilities, in a addition to entertainment facilities, to respond to emerging entertainment and recreational trends.

A gateway determination is anticipated to be granted in December with a public exhibition early next year.

Mirvac entered into a staged acquisition of the ownership of future stages of the Green Square from Landcom last year, following an eight-year partnership delivering on the site.