More towers, higher towers: Newcastle West's transformation
by Bradley Perrett · Newcastle HeraldWe ain't seen nothin' yet.
The high-rises that are complete or going up in Newcastle West are but a small down payment on what developers are planning for the city centre.
Relaxation of zoning limits has promoted a remarkable surge in applications for high-rises between Union and Tudor streets and in Wickham, too. The limits have always been too low, so good riddance to strict observance of them.
Newcastle's own machine-like developer, GWH, has just begun work on two residential buildings each of about 25 floors between Denison and Hunter streets. These will join four nearby buildings of about 30 storeys that are already well into construction, in the Store and Dairy Farmers developments.
The pair of GWH buildings, though a bit higher than early proposals for their sites, represents almost the end of an initial, decade-long phase of our high-rise progress. In that phase, companies proposed, and authorities allowed, structures that didn't much exceed the unambitious zoning plan.
Then in 2023 and 2024, the housing-hungry Labor state government kicked off a dramatic new phase for Newcastle - probably without expecting it, since it was of course focused on Sydney. It opened up a fast-track process for getting NSW homes built, giving developers a chance to propose projects that greatly exceeded zoning.
So we now have an explosion of development applications that previously would have had Buckley's chance.
The two that GWH is constructing in the West End are only the first two stages of what the company is calling the Cambridge Quarter, flanking Denison Street and extending as far as Wood Street.
GWH expects to finish the first pair in the first quarter of 2028 then promptly start stage three. Taking advantage of the limit-leaping new policies, stage three is proposed to be a 39-storey building fronting Wood Street. Later will come stage four, a 45-storey building on Denison, says GWH managing director Jonathan Craig.
Ridiculously, the zoning around there is for only 20 storeys. What a waste of potential that would impose on the city centre if enforced.
GWH's 45-storey building would be about two metres taller than what has previously been the highest proposal, for a 44-storey residential and hotel tower next to Newcastle Interchange, on the Wickham side.
Urban Group's head of planning, Chris Ferreira, says his company hopes to get approval for the striking cylindrical building this year and finish construction by late 2029 or early 2030. Elsewhere, no fewer than 13 towers of about 30 levels are proposed, including three in the critically important Newcastle Quay development that the state government is fouling up. Those three would generally conform to the zoning, as will one on the former Spotlight site at Bank Corner.
But the other nine proposals of 30-odd storeys are wildly and commendably in excess of what the silly zoning has allowed.
Among them, the earliest project would probably be the one for six towers on Marketown West, where the Coles supermarket is and where the limit has allowed only about 12 levels. Developer Region Group is seeking approval to go ahead first with two buildings there on what's now the outside car park.
Then GWH is proposing to build three towers of similar height on a site that includes the former Water Board offices between Hunter and King. If approved and built, the towers will be about double the zoning height limit.
We now have an explosion of development applications that previously would have had Buckley's chance.
And why shouldn't they be? The Honeysuckle tram stop is just across Hunter Street from the site, and the buildings would make great use of a location close to the harbour.
Mr Craig expects construction of the first of those towers to go ahead between phases three and four of the Cambridge Quarter.
Developer Doma is due to begin construction at Newcastle Quay in 2028, starting with some of that project's lower buildings closer to the water. There's no doubt that Doma's design would bring great vitality to the area near the interchange, but this column has argued that the government should revise the whole scheme to create an attention-grabbing spectacle on the precious site, compensating the developer as it does so.
The accompanying map generated with the help of Anthropic AI also shows 13 smaller buildings of 15-plus storeys that are under construction or proposed. A few proposals with lower heights aren't shown.
All this wildly exceeds the dreams of 2012, when the decision was made to shorten the rail line and build a new city-centre core around a West End interchange.
Another difference is that little of the new and proposed space is for the offices that were then imagined. What we're seeing is a response to surging demand for city-centre living near the harbour.
That brings us to the question of how quickly all this can be built - which is basically the question of how quickly the flats can be sold. By my count, all the proposed or underway projects west of Union Street would provide about 6,000 homes, more than are in all of Charlestown (while occupying vastly less land than that six-square-km suburb).
One manager closely involved in the city centre market reckons the industry can sell at least two apartments there a day - about 700 a year. Allowing for competition from smaller developments around there, that suggests that developers could book contracts for all these flats by the second half of next decade and complete the last of the projects around 2040. Doma says it expects demand to support staged construction of Newcastle Quay over 15 years.
There could be many twists and turns in the city centre's redevelopment. Projects can stall for various reasons, and new ones will surely appear. For some, we're just awaiting details. One helpful factor will surely be that city-centre homes will become easier to sell as prospective buyers note that the area is not semi-derelict and quiet, as now, but fresh and full of ground-level activity. All this will do wonders for our image.