Sunito’s 1000-Hotel Modular Bet Faces Sydney Test

One Global Capital’s first modular hotel room prototype is due by late October, giving Iwan Sunito five months to test whether a repeated hotel room can cut delivery time, reduce debt exposure and still hold the standard of a full-service hotel. Sunito is founder and chief executive of One Global Capital , the property group he’s building after co-founding Crown Group. Its hotel arm, One Global Resorts, already operates the former Skye Suites Green Square, a 90-key hotel he took control of through the Crown Group asset split. Now he wants prefab rooms and a company-owned construction arm to give One Global more control over how its next hotels are built. The first sample room will be delivered at a dedicated part of One Global’s Five Dock site at 155-167 Parramatta Road, a 14,122sq m mixed-use site also moving through planning. Sunito says it will train One Global Construction Division before the model moves into live delivery. But his target stretches well beyond one Sydney site. One Global is aiming for 100 hotels, then 1000 globally, all within a seven-year horizon. ▲ One Global Capital founder and chief executive Iwan Sunito is moving his modular hotel model from prototype to planning. The first full-scale test is planned for Macquarie Park, where One Global has lodged plans for a 14-storey, 143-room hotel at 155 Herring Road ( pictured at top ), near the metro station, Macquarie University, Macquarie University Hospital and one of Sydney’s largest business precincts. The modular push sits inside a broader post-Crown rebuild spanning hotel operations at Green Square, a major Five Dock mixed-use holding in planning, and residential, hotel and retail ambitions at Macquarie Park and Chatswood. Macquarie Park would test the next part of the strategy, giving One Global more control over the system used to build the rooms. “I’m not trying to cut costs, I’m trying to speed up the product,” Sunito says. “I’m not trying to cut quality. I’m increasing the quality by being efficient and by producing the best quality materials and finishes.” From Five Dock to Macquarie Park The Herring Road site was previously part of a wider approval for 307 apartments across 5-11 Lachlan Avenue and 155-159 Herring Road. Sunito has carved out the 987.9sq m corner for a standalone hotel, arguing Macquarie Park already has a deep residential pipeline while quality hotel supply remains thinner near its main demand drivers. ▲ The 155 Herring Road site at Macquarie Park, where One Global Capital plans its first full-scale modular hotel. The plans would replace a three-storey apartment block with a hotel designed by Marcellino Sain Architects, comprising a double-height foyer, library, ground-floor pool, rooftop garden, water feature, basement parking and landscaping within a curved tower with vertical battens and greenery. One Global is seeking more height and floor space than base controls allow, reduced parking and a vehicle access arrangement capable of working on a tight corner lot. The architectural report says prefabricated volumetric units would be made in a controlled factory environment before being transported to site for assembly. Sunito says the project has reached the point of testing the model against compliance. The Five Dock prototype gives One Global’s construction division a controlled way to test the room, finishes, transport and installation process before Macquarie Park moves into delivery. Sunito says the division is scaling up, and One Global is considering a partnership with Melbourne modular specialist Prebuilt and is in talks with China State Construction Engineering Corporation, known as CSCEC, as it seeks advice on the modular system. Quality, not just speed Modular construction has long promised faster programs, better quality control, less waste and fewer workers on site. But the advantage weakens when projects need different layouts, interfaces, facade systems or approval pathways. ▲ A rendering of One Global Capital’s 14-storey Macquarie Park hotel. Sunito says hotels offer cleaner repetition because operators want consistency, guests expect standard rooms and developers can refine one product across multiple sites. Apartments are harder, he says, because buyers, floorplans and finishes vary too much. His pitch also pushes against modular’s image problem. In Australia, prefabrication can still read as cheap, temporary or compromised. Sunito wants Macquarie Park to prove speed doesn’t have to lower the grade of the product. Sunito points to double glazing, rooftop landscaping, a library-style corner space and Japanese Toto toilets in every room. “I normally use more the basic one for our development,” he says. “But [for this project] I want the top of the range.” Time is the prize The project’s clearest commercial argument isn’t capital cost, it’s time. Sunito doesn’t claim the first modular hotel will transform the build price. “I expect the first building will only be about 10 per cent saving,” he says. The larger saving sits in the program. A conventional 18-month build could be compressed, with the modular hotel component delivered in about six months once excavation and podium works are complete. Sunito says the gain comes through “a saving of interest” and earlier income. The road problem But getting modules to site is proving a tougher nut to crack. Under NSW Class 1 load-carrying vehicle rules, loads wider than 3.5m or longer than 26m face restricted access to state roads in the Sydney Metropolitan Zone, including limits from 8.30am to sunset on weekends and public holidays. Some wider loads also need extra motorway notification and route planning. For Sunito, width goes straight to room quality. A 3.5m module is easier to move through Sydney, but structure, fire rating, acoustic treatment, services and joinery can pull the internal room closer to 3 metres. He says this is too tight for a quality hotel, which is why One Global is working around a 4m module. “We still can get about 3.5m, which I think is fine for a hotel,” he says. The wider room improves the product, but makes delivery harder, narrowing transport windows, adding permit work and potentially pushing movements into off-peak or night periods before craning can be sequenced on site. Sunito says governments need to weigh those constraints against the disruption of a conventional build, where heavy works can run for months. “So there’s got to be a shift in the way we think about how to do this,” he says. For One Global, the issue goes beyond one site. A single hotel can absorb a difficult delivery program but a 100-hotel target cannot. Macquarie Park is where the model has to prove it can carry a repeatable pipeline, with road permits, planning controls, crane logistics and debt costs all sitting inside the same feasibility equation.

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Vanessa Croll
Mon 08 Jun 26

Sunito’s 1000-Hotel Modular Bet Faces Sydney Test

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