Regular visitors to Sydney, New South Wales, Australia over the past few years will have noticed the gradual transformation of the down-at-heels western part of the city’s Central Business District (CBD).
Barangaroo under construction in 2015.
Photo by Storm Cunningham
What was once a container wharf with no public access is now witnessing one of the major urban developments the city has seen and rivals many of the large developments occurring worldwide.
It’s a remarkable vision for urban renewal and development involving commercial development and government agencies and is a project on a similar but grander scale to Auckland, New Zealand’s Viaduct Harbour developments.
The Barangaroo precinct adjacent to Darling Harbour covers 22 hectares and is one of the largest sites of public art and cultural activity in the nation.
Barangaroo under construction in 2015.
Photo by Storm Cunningham
Lend Lease is developing the area known as Barangaroo South and it is intended to be a sustainable community with a 6 Star Green Star – Communities rating representing world leadership in the design and delivery of sustainable communities. It is envisaged that, once completed, one in 20 CBD workers will be coming to Barangaroo South each day,
Barangaroo South is targeted to become Australia’s first large-scale carbon-neutral community and is one of only 17 projects globally to be part of the C40 Cities-Clinton Climate Initiative’s Climate Positive Development Program. The precinct is capable of being water positive, with an on-site blackwater treatment plant capable of supplying one million litres of recycled water a day to the precinct and surrounding suburbs. Barangaroo is also targeting zero net waste to landfill by 2020.
In January of 2017, a Metro station under Barangaroo was granted planning approval for the Chatswood to Sydenham line. By the end of 2018, the first of five tunnel boring machines will be in the ground carving out new twin tunnels.
Sydney Metro will be able to carry a new metro train every two minutes in each direction under the Sydney CBD.