Rich-List Family Plots $155m Eden Gardens Office Project

Members of the Ainsworth family are planning to build a $155-million office development at Eden Gardens in northern Sydney.

Under the guise of Thunderbirds Are Go Pty Ltd, Anne and Simon Ainsworth have submitted plans to redevelop the site at 307 Lane Cove, Macquarie Park.

The Ainsworths are known for their ties to gambling machine manufacturing, led by patriarch Len Ainsworth, who ranked 18th on the 2020 AFR Rich List.

The plans by DKO architects for the 24,680sq m site next to Lane Cove National Park show an 18-storey office building with a rooftop garden and multi-level carpark, and landscaped by Realm Studios.

There will also be alterations and additions to existing garden centre and nursery facilities to create a functions centre in the display gardens, a restaurant, rock climbing wall and a fit-out of the garden centre.

According to the development application the buildings would be set in a “horticultural wonderland”.

“Macquarie Park is the northern anchor of Sydney's eastern economic corridor and employs approximately 100,000 workers,” according to the urban design report.

“Our proposal at 307 Lane Cove Road [Eden Gardens] presents as a ... opportunity to create a balanced provision of commercial, hospitality, neighbourhood shops and public realm use on the doorstep of nature and the available amenity of Lane Cove National Park.”

Simon Ainsworth is also the managing director of Eden Gardens and Anna Ainsworth is the community development manager.

Thunderbirds Are Go purchased the Lane Cove site for $3.5 million in late 2001. It is within the City of Ryde municipality.

Edens Gardens also has a presence in northern Brisbane on a 1.52ha site at Carseldine which was purchased for $5.1 million in 2008.

Macquarie Park has undergone rapid development in the past few years with construction beginning on the residential-based Ivanhoe Estate and Frasers Property Industrial and Winten Property Group's Macquarie Exchange business precinct.