This article is from the Australian Property Journal archive
USED as social housing from 1981 through to 2018, the Sirius building has recorded its biggest sale yet with fintech investor David Fite paying $22 million for part of the JDH Capital redevelopment.
The controversial sale of the brutalist building by the NSW to JDH Capital for $150 million in 2019, touted an increased apartment number from the original 79 to 89, though evidently with a very different resident in mind.
The redevelopment, on some of Australia’s most valuable land in Sydney’s The Rocks, was recently completed including the crowning penthouse with expectations of $50 million.
A company under Fite paid for the apartment, which is expected to become his Sydney place of residence upon the sale of his expansive Otahki home in Longueville.
Ahead of completion earlier this year, prices in the new Sirius building were listed at $1.55 million for a studio, $3.2 million for a two-bedroom plus a further $1.5 million for a car park.
Three-bedrooms would cost potential buyers $3.5 million, in the building that once served those waiting on the ever-expanding social housing waitlist.
While at the same time, luxury apartment sales have continued to smash records, with a sub-penthouse in Lendlease’s One Circular Quay, for example, selling off-the-plan for $61.7 million.
The last resident to be evicted from the iconic Sirius building was a 93-year-old woman in January of 2018.
Beyond tenants themselves and advocacy groups, critics of the government’s sale included the Dutch architect of the building, Tao Gofers, who called the redevelopment a “privately profitable scam”.
