Apartment wave to sweep North Sydney’s MLC Building
105 Miller Street, North Sydney
North Sydney’s landmark, the modernist former MLC building, is set for conversion into rental apartments, according to plans lodged by the Investa Property Group.
The latest plan for the historic tower would see 340 build-to-rent units developed in an adaptive reuse of the building in keeping with the shift to overhaul ageing office blocks.
The move could garner the support of authorities, as it offers the chance to both preserve the complex’s heritage elements and help address the pressing housing crisis.
The mixed-use scheme would see the conversion of the tower, which was North Sydney’s first high-rise office block and is now owned by an Oxford Property Group trust run by Investa.
While it has been vacated by the financial institution, even with the residential scheme in place it could still be revamped as an office building, with a syndicator this earlier year looking at this possibility.
The 14-storey building on the corner of Miller Street, the Pacific Highway and a now closed section of Mount Street sits near a series of new office skyscrapers that have either been recently completed or are under construction.
Investa had planned to demolish the 1950s modernist-era complex and replace it by building an A-grade net-zero commercial building at a cost of $500m. It initially won a legal case that overturned the heritage listing of the building by the NSW government architect and then special minister of state Don Harwin in 2022.
But in May this year, the NSW Land and Environment Court rejected Investa’s earlier plans to demolish the block and for a 27-storey office complex to rise on the site.
The court found that Investa had not shown why it would be unreasonable to conserve the block. The switch to a build-to-rent proposal that allows for conservation of the building and the housing element may see it assessed differently.
Heritage advocates had argued that the former MLC building had indisputable local and state heritage significance and a demolition was contrary to the aims of heritage laws, with the building suitable for ongoing adaptive reuse.
Experts in the court case said there was scope for a refurbishment with no change to the existing envelope, and the complex could be upgraded to an “upper B grade” building with a 5-star energy rating. The property is unlikely to be developed by Investa but rather marketed for sale by real estate agency CBRE, with the option of either use on the table.
While the future of the landmark building has attracted controversy, the move to build-to-rent is not unexpected, as it has taken off across the city. Most notably, in North Sydney, property group Aqualand has proposed a build-to-rent complex in Blue Street and other groups are also targeting the north shore, including the Daniel Grollo-backed Home operation which has a site in St Leonards.
