Urban Regen Success Story

From ugly duckling to sleek waterside beauty, the story of Barangaroo South involves more than the rise of a new precinct. It’s about the transformation of an almost forgotten part of Sydney into one of the world’s most ambitious urban renewal projects.

What was once a fenced-off container shipping wharf has become a thriving global landmark blending community, commerce, sustainability and culture. Behind the gleaming towers and humming waterfront restaurants lies a deeper story of vision, perseverance and partnership that rejuvenated the site of the onetime working port.

For thousands of years, First Nations people fished and hunted around coves in the area. Then, after the arrival of European settlers, numerous wooden finger wharves began jutting out into the harbour, supporting trade in wool, timber and farm produce.

In the 1960s, the wharves were demolished, replaced with landfill and topped with a concrete apron to enable container shipping. That facility was closed in the 2000s. All that remained was an unlovely and unloved slab sitting atop reclaimed land and the site of the defunct Millers Point Gasworks which had contaminated the area with coal tar residue.

Despite the grim reality of the disused location, the NSW Government and some Sydneysiders could see its vast potential – including Michelle Grand-Milkovic, co-founder of love.fish restaurant on the Barangaroo South waterfront. On her first visit to the precinct, the area was a busy construction site where cranes swung above partially completed buildings and high hoarding blocked the view of the proposed restaurant’s location.

“When I got off the ferry it was in the early days of construction,” she says. “But it still felt really dynamic, incredibly exciting. One of the biggest drawcards for us was the potential sense of community amongst other restauranteurs and the vision for the precinct. It was going to be such a unique combination of history and culture with modern urban design. And, most importantly, was the precinct’s commitment to sustainability.”

Michelle Grand-Milkovic, co-founder of love.fish restaurant

With work on creating Barangaroo South now complete, the Sydney CBD harbourside precinct is in celebration mode. One of those celebrating is David Langford, Lendlease’s General Manager NSW, Construction. He recalls looking out down from a nearby commercial tower at the empty 7.5 hectare site: “It was vast and the project had significant challenges. For example, the excavation through contaminated ground of two basement levels directly adjacent to the harbour.”

According to Langford, another challenge was building a new neighbourhood within the CBD of a harbour city. “We had one road in and out of the project, Hickson Road. That brought other significant issues around logistics for the site – how to actually feed materials to the large workforce. We responded by setting up a concrete batching plant right on site rather than trucking concrete in. In terms of the delivery of concurrent works, it was on a scale few had seen before. The project ultimately had 3,000 construction workers every day.”

Tom Mackellar, Lendlease’s Chief Executive Officer, Development, says Barangaroo South is an exemplar of an urban regeneration project delivered through a strong public and private partnership. He characterises the NSW Government’s vision for the project as extraordinary in ambition, scale and delivery. “We put the best of our people on the project,” Mackellar says.

“In partnership with the Government, we’ve delivered a phenomenal outcome for the city and the broader community. Summing up the transformation, he continued to remark, “The history of the Barangaroo site was really that it turned its back on the city. It was the legacy of Sydney’s industrial past, and much of the original history of the area had been forgotten. This presented an opportunity to open Barangaroo back up to the people, to remove the contamination from the area and to create a great new place on the harbour, restoring Country.”