ApartmentsHarrison CaithnessTue 29 Sep 26
Woolworths Gets its Gladesville Shoptop, With a Haircut
Fabcot’s $175 million Lower North Shore nine and 13-storey shoptop has been waved ahead with amendments.
The Woolworths development arm’s state significant development will comprise 161 units—down 10 from the proposed 171 dwellings—and just over 5 per cent (11 units) affordable housing.
The 5578sq m site on Wallumedegal land is less than 1km north of the Gladesville town centre and about 9km to Sydney CBD.
The site at 363-373 Victoria Road and 44-48 Eltham Street fronts the arterial Victoria Road. A number of single to two-storey residences and light industrial buildings will be demolished early next year to make way for the development.
Architecture firm ClarkeHopkinsClarke has designed a concrete, brick and metal clad building envelope of two residential blocks on a single-level supermarket podium.
Unit typology will comprise almost two-thirds dual-bedrooms, 11 per cent single-beds and just over a quarter three-beds.
Retail gross floor area 3698sq m will comprise a full-line Woolworths supermarket plus a cafe at ground floor.
Pierre Abrahamse, Fabcot national mixed-use development manager, told The Urban Developer he was happy with the amendments.
A four-storey basement (unchanged from the proposal) will provide 392 car spaces including 202 residential spaces and 190 retail spaces.
Fabcot sought to double building height controls to 49.5m and floor space ratios to 4:1. The state has permitted Fabcot’s proposal to raise building height controls to 47m and a floor space ratio of 3.74:1.
Ryde city council approved a four to seven-storey, 47-unit mixed-use project at the site almost a decade ago, but it did not progress.
Earlier this year Fabcot was greenlit for another Lower North Shore Woolworths shoptop, this time at Neutral Bay comprising 97-units for $191 million.
A joint venture between Fabcot and Time & Place for a 141-unit shoptop at Ramsgate was filed in May.
Full-line supermarkets typically need to service 8000 to 10,000 people to be viable, Abrahamse said.
“The projects are really focusing on opportunities within catchment areas,” he said.
Woolworth’s “underdeveloped” West Footscray supermarket scheme in Victoria was given the nod last year, despite council opposition.
Directly across Victoria Road, a shoptop project with potential for 600 dwellings was declared state significant last year.
Fabcot’s Woolworths shoptop is expected to be a two-year build, completing end of 2028 or early 2029.
