CBD NORTH - #PROPOSED: One Carrington Street - 30L / 146M / office

[Brizer]

Yes, I was wondering if a 2nd entrance was opened during the construction of the office building atop the station on George Street. Was that around 1963?

[Sky_Is_The_Limit]

As an interesting aside, the Draft NSW Transport Masterplan released today indicated that 110,000 people use Wynyard Station every weekday. Take away weekends and public holidays and you have 27.72 million people every year solely on weekdays.

Barangaroo is expected to add an extra 14,000 people on a typical weekday. This would push the number of commuters on weekdays per year to over 30 million. One would also expect an uplift in commuters with the construction of towers in the Wynyard catchment (like 200 George, City One, 333 George, 5 Martin Place and 383 George).

If I was the Government, I'd be keen for Brookfield to takeover Thakral and get at least the lower level upgrades complete by the time Barangaroo starts to open in 2015.

[Mornnb]

Originally Posted by Sky_Is_The_Limit

As an interesting aside, the Draft NSW Transport Masterplan released today indicated that 110,000 people use Wynyard Station every weekday.

That's a huge number. To give some perspective, the busiest subway station in New York, 42nd Times Square, has 164,000 passengers a day on 9 platforms. And the busiest tube station in London, Waterloo station, has 224,000 passengers a day on 19 platforms. Wynyard's 4 platforms are already at or past crowding levels of these much bigger cities. Clearly Wynyard needs an upgrade, hopefully will come with the second harbour crossing.

[Sky_Is_The_Limit]

Yes, it shows the CityRail network's huge dependency on the successful operation of three stations - Central (170,000/weekday), Town Hall (150,000/weekday) and Wynyard. There's a huge drop off to the next busiest station - Circular Quay - and it could be said that the remaining CityCircle stations are underutilised a lot.

A big decision the Government will have to make with the second harbour crossing is which alignment - 'MetroWest' or 'MetroPitt?' There are powerful cases for both...

I think any major upgrade of the platforms themselves will only be conducted after the second harbour crossing is built.

[GeoffreySYD]

Originally Posted by Sky_Is_The_Limit

Yes, it shows the CityRail network's huge dependency on the successful operation of three stations - Central (170,000/weekday), Town Hall (150,000/weekday) and Wynyard. There's a huge drop off to the next busiest station - Circular Quay - and it could be said that the remaining CityCircle stations are underutilised a lot.

The 4th busiest station is Parramatta, then North Sydney no. 5.
Circular Quay only comes 13th.

Source:
http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showpo...postcount=4749

[Sky_Is_The_Limit]

Shows how underutilised the rest of the CBD stations are.

[Sky_Is_The_Limit]

Not immediate news, as such, but good news for the overall project. Brookfield has officially taken over Thakral and as such will assume ownership and control of this site. Brookfield see it as a golden redevelopment opportunity - no word on whether they will pursue a redevelopment of the site as approved, or if they will seek some modifications.

Thakral sees the writing on wall
BY: BRIDGET CARTER From: The Australian September 13, 2012 12:00AM

ACQUISITIONS: Diversified property owner Thakral Holdings will be delisted from the Australian Securities Exchange after Brookfield Multiplex secured support from more than 90 per cent of the company's shareholders for its takeover bid.

The entity acting for Brookfield, Bidco, yesterday said that after receiving 93 per cent support for the offer, it was compulsory for the remaining shareholders to accept its proposal.

Brookfield bid $410 million for Thakral in April after initially vying for Thakral's $1 billion-plus mixed-use redevelopment site at Wynyard train station in the heart of Sydney's central business district.

But last month, Brookfield sweetened its initial 70c-a-share offer in the form of a two-tiered bid, where shareholders would receive 81c a unit if more than 90 per cent accepted.

Thakral, with a market value of $471m, owns hotels including the Sofitel Brisbane, the Menzies Hotel at Wynyard, retail centres and residential development properties.

For the 2012 financial year, Thakral Holdings rebounded from a $21m loss to post a $2.6m net profit. The Thakral board had previously advised shareholders to reject Brookfield's initial offer.

Canadian private equity giant Brookfield made the takeover approach after it secured control of the majority of the Thakral family's 43 per cent stake in the company through a debt purchase.

Previously, just under half of Thakral's board comprised family members.

Meanwhile, Austock Property Management also yesterday announced that its shareholders had approved the sale of its property funds management business to the Greg Paramor-backed listed property group Folkestone.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/busi...-1226472894669

Brookfield eyes hotel value
SEPTEMBER 27, 2012 BY THE MP REPORT LEAVE A COMMENT

Canadian giant Brookfield Asset Management will look to “monetise” about $550 million of hotels it picked up in its takeover of Thakral Holdings Group.
Brookfield’s offer for Thakral closed earlier this week, garnering about 97 per cent of the register, and it will now privatise the group.
Brookfield chief financial officer Brian Lawson told a conference in Canada last week that the group had pursued the Australian trust mainly due to its planned $1.3 billion Wynyard City One development in the Sydney CBD.
“The thing that really attracted us to it was they have an outstanding development site in central Sydney,” he said.
Hotels were “not a core investment strategy for us, although we do own a few now”, he added.
Brookfield took a position on Thakral last year after buying up the debt to a 38.6 per cent bundle of shares held by the Thakral family from Singapore’s GIC Real Estate.
It called in receivers PPB in April and launched a full bid for Thakral.
Mr Lawson said that Brookfield had “enough conviction” from observing what was going on in the takeover process to “feel that we’ll be able to monetise those [hotels] at a good rate”.
Brookfield’s senior managing partner in Australia, Brian Kingston, said that now the group had closed the transaction, the next step would be assessing each of the assets and deciding its strategies.
Brookfield, advised by UBS, won over investors after sweetening its bid to 81¢ per Thakral security. Macquarie Capital and Investec advised Thakral.
Thakral’s hotel portfolio of six four- to five-star hotels along Australia’s eastern seaboard is one of the last prizes in the sector.
The hotels are managed by Accor – Sofitel Brisbane and Gold Coast, the Menzies and Novotel Brighton and Wollongong in NSW – and Hilton, which runs the Hilton on the Park in Melbourne.
Thakral’s entire portfolio of hotels, retail and office buildings, apartments and development properties comprises just over $1 billion. Hotels made up about $684 million of this on the latest valuations.
Independent expert Grant Samuel said that excluding The Menzies Hotel – which is part of the Wynyard site – the portfolio was worth between $559 million and $565 million.

http://thempreport.com.au/2012/09/27...s-hotel-value/

[Sky_Is_The_Limit]

Bump

Things happening behind the scenes, not sure what it means time wise...

[Sky_Is_The_Limit]

That said, 301 George Street (Thakral House) has commercial space available for lease with ''flexible lease terms available.''

http://www.realcommercial.com.au/pro...sydney-5770791

I'm hopeful that Brookfield are able to secure pre-commitments that enable this project to be completed at least around the same time as the first towers at Barangaroo South.

[Fabian]

Its a case of business as usual for me with the tower. Still no closer to knowing when construction will begin.

[Sky_Is_The_Limit]

Bump.

This project is now known as 'One Carrington Street.'

If I skimmed correctly, Brookfield Multiplex is going to hold a design competition for the commercial tower which will form Phase 1 of the project, along with the refurbishment of the Wynyard Walkways east of Carrington Street. Phase 2 of the project will seek the refurbishment of RailCorp owned space west of Carrington Street.

https://majorprojects.affinitylive.c...t%201Feb13.pdf

http://majorprojects.planning.nsw.go...ob&job_id=5824

Because this project will inevitably draw a lot of posts on the railway station and retail component, I've asked the mods to edit the title from office to mixed. Furthermore, I've asked them to revert the title to proposed from approved so we are more clear of where it is in the planning pipeline.

[Chatty01]

This is my favourite office building in the cbd the glass looks really good

[Chatty01]

Wrong thread sorry guys thought it was anz building

[Brizer]

Thought they'd already had a design competition for this site?
Had a scroll through the documents but there's no significant detail beyond what Sky posted. The tiny wonder is, will they try for something a little taller if they aren't going with the current - rather good! - design?

[Cariad]

Yeah I actually like the design. So I hope a comp will give us something even better and taller.

[Sky_Is_The_Limit]

Fat chance that will happen. The request for DGRs was quite clear that the proposal should not cast shadows over the GPO steps or northern facade.

[Fabian]

I'm only expecting a refinement to the existing design. Not much else.