‘Family-Friendly’ Rethink for 20-Storey Macquarie Park Tower

The new owner of a DA-approved site at Macquarie Park has filed major “family-friendly” changes to the plans. 

The amended plans from Romeciti detail a laundry list of changes to the original designs by Scott Carver Architects for Legacy Property Group, slashing the number of apartments and reconfiguring the project internally and externally.

Legacy launched an expressions-of-interest campaign in June last year for the DA-approved site at 14-16 Cottonwood Crescent. 

The original plans, which were approved in 2020, proposed five levels of basement parking and ground-floor retail with 20 storeys comprising 132 apartments above.

The facade created a “beehive” aesthetic, inspired by the local Shrimpton Creek bee habitats.

The modifications proposed by Romeciti in the current application will cut the height of the building by a storey to accommodate increased floor-to-floor heights. 

But one of the biggest changes is that apartments have been reconfigured to deliver a “family-friendly product”.  

▲ Before and after: A render of the original tower on left and the new version proposed by developer Romeciti on right.

These changes drop the number of apartments from 132 to 101. 

Legacy had proposed a mix of studio, one and two bedroom and a handful of three-bedroom apartments. 

Instead, Romeciti is proposing 31 two-bedroom and 24 four-bedroom with the remainder a mix of two bedrooms and two bedrooms plus study.

The internal and external alterations made by Rothelowman had been “developed to maximise the internal amenity” of the units, the developers said.

The new plans also make major changes to the facade, scrapping the diagrid arrangement which it said intersected with window apertures given its new proposed apartment layouts.

The new facade would allow better shading, the integration of landscaping and a “singular expression” of the tower element, Romeciti said.

Basement and ground-floor layout changes will provide lobby space to join internal and external amenities, and the retail level will be lowered to improve its interface with Waterloo Road. 

The retail floor will also be reconfigured “to provide more practical and usable tenancy dimensions”. 

Romeciti, a Sydney residential developer, has had its eye on the buoyant Macquarie Park market for more than five years.

Th developer has acquired other sites on Cottonwood Crescent from the Goodman Group in 2017, and another at 137-143 Herring Road which it reportedly bought in 2019 for $120 million. 

Macquarie Park’s proximity to transport, universities and business districts has made it a hotspot for developers, with plans lodged in the past six months for Freecity’s $230 million co-living project, as well as Goodman’s build-to-rent project.