Mirvac's 37-storey, $250 million Sydney office block proposal awaits final approval

Mirvac's proposed 37-storey Sydney commercial building now faces its final approval processes after its public exhibition closed yesterday. 

Mirvac Group is reportedly set to include the new tower in a mooted $1.3 billion unlisted office trust, which will offer a 50% stake in four assets in a bid to attract more equity into its funds management business from international investors, according to a recent report by the Australian Financial Review.

The $250 million FJMT-designed development (architectural impressions below) will provide 43,270 square metres of floorspace including ground-level retail.

It emerged after six selected architects – Architectus; Bates Smart; Collins and Turner; Fitzpatrick + Partners; FJMT; and Woods Bagot – were invited in September 2011 to partipate in a competition for its architectural design to meet the target construction cost budget of $215 million.

It was concluded by the judging panel that its achieves warmth in materiality and character in the podium and tower forms that will result in definitive and elegant architecture.

"The building’s podium is one of its key strengths and recognises the site’s mid-block character by providing a respectful and strong street wall.

"The curved tapering end to the street wall also provides a strong reinforcement at the human scale of the ‘kink’ in George Street at this juncture (opposite Essex Street) and also purports to draw pedestrians along the site and through into the future public square," the judges concluded.

It comes with a through-site pedestrian link between George and Underwood streets, an enhanced Crane Place, along with the allowance for the future connection of a laneway between Dalley Street and Herald Square.

The site has frontages to George Street, Dalley Street, Underwood Street and Crane Lane.

The SMH commercial property editor Carolyn Cummins initially reported last year that Westpac might take the space, but more recently she's noted its likely leasing by Ernst & Young.