Commonwealth Bank seals deal with tech park

The Commonwealth Bank will become the anchor tenant at Sydney’s redeveloped Australian Technology Park after a Mirvac-led group acquired the inner-city site for $263 million.

Mirvac, along with AMP Capital and Sunsuper, is expected to spend $1 billion developing two buildings with 93,000sqm of office space specifically for the bank at the Eveleigh site, with completion expected in 2020.

Commonwealth Bank will lease the buildings on a 15-year deal and move 10,000 of its employees to the new precinct when it opens.

The proximity of Australian Technology Park to our existing Sydney CBD offices will allow for better integration with these locations

The bank’s chief financial officer David Craig says the upcoming lease will mean most of the bank’s employees will be more closely located, as well as providing potential opportunities with other companies.

“Moving to the transformed Australian Technology Park will put 10,000 of our people in the heart of a growing technology hub, providing us with a significant opportunity to partner and collaborate with universities, start-ups and other innovative companies,” Craig says.

“In addition, the proximity of Australian Technology Park to our existing Sydney CBD offices will allow for better integration with these locations and enhance collaboration by bringing our people closer together.”

Australian Technology Park has sold to a Mirvac-led consortium for $263 million

But the move to the office super site means Commonwealth Bank won’t renew leases at its offices in Parramatta, Sydney Olympic Park or Lidcombe when they expire.

Instead its workforce will be moved to ATP and other CBD offices at Darling Park, Commonwealth Bank Place and Darling Square.

The news was met with anger from western Sydney advocacy groups, who say the move hurts Commonwealth Bank employees and customers in the city’s west.

“The bank has effectively said to the region, ‘we don’t think you’re necessarily part of our future’, and I imagine part of western Sydney will reconsider their banking future at the same time,” Western Sydney Leadership Dialogue chairman Christopher Brown told the ABC.

The move is also expected to impact on the $2 billion Parramatta Square development, which had hoped to secure Commonwealth Bank as a tenant.