Revelop Recasts Sydney CBD Hotel Play As Apartments
Revelop has dumped a long-approved Sydney CBD hotel play in favour of a $55-million apartment scheme and retention of one of the city’s earliest surviving Catholic church buildings turned theatre.
The privately owned developer, founded by Anthony El-Hazouri and Charbel Hazzouri, would keep 420 Kent Street—the former Genesian Theatre—while replacing three warehouse buildings on the balance of the site with a 16-storey mixed-used tower.
The Stewart Architecture-designed proposal would rise to 54.76m and carry 25 apartments.
Sitting on the western side of the CBD between Town Hall and Darling Harbour, the 806.9sq m holding spans 420 Kent Street, 422-424 Kent Street and 275-277 Clarence Street.
Plans on exhibition until May 8 would deliver 23 three-bedroom apartments and two four-bedroom apartments, plus a cafe, bar, indoor recreation tenancy, 25 parking spaces in an automated stacker and a 2.4m through-site link between Kent and Clarence streets.
Gross floor area would reach 6389sq m, including 4962sq m of residential space and 589sq m of commercial floor area.
Town Hall Station sits about 200m away and Gadigal Metro is about 300m from the site.
Revelop said “changes in market demand” and “greater demand for residential development in Central Sydney” drove the shift away from the earlier hotel path.
The City of Sydney has approved major redevelopment on the site before.
A 2017 consent covered a part 16 and part 17-storey project across 422-424 Kent Street and 275-277 Clarence Street with 72 hotel rooms and 13 apartments.
The Central Sydney Planning Committee then approved a 19-storey hotel-led scheme in 2019 with 199 hotel rooms, two basement levels, a through-site link and refurbishment of the Genesian Theatre.
Neither scheme was physically commenced.
Revelop said it considered acting on the earlier approval after acquiring the site.
“Upon acquisition of the site, Revelop considered acting upon the 2018 approval however, based on changes in market demand, it was considered that there was greater demand for residential development in Central Sydney, in accordance with the current housing crisis,” the developer said.
Planning documents said the new proposal remained “generally consistent” with the 2019 approval, retaining a Kent-to-Clarence through-site link and a 7.5m parallel offset setback from the Genesian roof.
Retention of 420 Kent Street is central to the proposal.
Planning material said the through-site link would stay publicly accessible 24 hours a day, seven days a week and would create a missing pedestrian connection from QVB to Cockle Bay via Mullins Street and Druitt Place.
It would also form the physical break between the new tower and the retained church and theatre building.
Heritage and archaeology material traced the site through a much earlier school and church phase before its theatre life.
Land was transferred to Father John McEnroe in 1856 and the foundation stone for St John the Evangelist was laid in 1868.
The building later moved into theatre use from 1932, then housed the first Matthew Talbot Hostel for homeless and friendless men from 1938 to 1952, before refurbishment as the Genesian Theatre in 1952.
Archaeology material also said 422-424 Kent Street was used by the Benevolent Society for charitable housing from at least the 1830s.
Current plans retain the building’s form but stop short of locking in its final use.
The scheme seeks adaptive re-use and external works including a new pedestrian entry from the through-site link, reinstated openings along the southern facade and repairs to the western wall.
Fitout, use and operation of the retained building would come under a separate future application.
Access would be split across both frontages. Residential vehicles would enter from Clarence Street into the automated stacker, while loading, servicing and waste functions would operate from Kent Street.
The traffic report said the stacker would service the expected demand without an on-site waiting bay, with a 23-vehicle-an-hour service rate and only a 4.2 per cent chance of a driver arriving while the system was already in operation.
Below ground, archaeology adds another approval hurdle.
An archaeological assessment from March said the site retains moderate to high potential for historical remains linked to early residential, religious, institutional and warehouse phases.
Bulk excavation for the new basements would remove almost all surviving archaeology across the redevelopment footprint, requiring a Section 140 excavation permit, an archaeological research design and further Aboriginal heritage work before major groundworks.
