Developers are dipping back into the planning system to ask for higher buildings as a new analysis reveals the scale of west end investment activity.
The owner of the Bowline commercial and apartment complex, Sydney company Multipart Property, has applied for three more floors on its 14-storey commercial and residential building under construction next to Newcastle Interchange.
GWH Group has lodged new plans for a 20-storey apartment tower in western Hunter Street, adding five more floors to a development application it lodged late last year.
The Newcastle Herald reported last year that the company behind the city's tallest office building, HYG, had applied successfully to add two more storeys to the 14-storey 727 HQ in Hunter Street.
An analysis by the Herald shows the large volume of significant projects in Newcastle West and neighbouring Wickham.
In the past three years, 24 major residential, commercial, transport, hotel or mixed-use developments have opened, started construction or launched a planning process in the two suburbs.
The value of capital investment listed on development applications for the 24 Newcastle West and Wickham projects totals more than $1.2 billion, though the true value of the splurge is likely to be far higher as developers routinely understate building costs on DAs.
The projects include 16 apartment buildings with a total of 2388 units, not including the 500 future residents of the proposed student housing high-rise on the Cambridge Hotel site nor the likely massive redevelopment of the three-hectare Honeysuckle HQ site.
Australian Bureau of Statistics census data shows the population of Newcastle West more than doubled from 618 to 1453 between 2016 and 2021. Wickham's population grew from 1079 to 1637 in the same period.
Multipart development manager Dave Desson said on Wednesday that more than 90 per cent of the 97 apartments in the Bowline building on Hannell Street had sold.
"We knew buying this site was a smart move," Mr Desson said.
"We're sitting really comfortably and there's been no discounting from us."
The company wants to increase the height of the building from 46 to 59 metres, well above the 45-metre limit for that part of Wickham.
It argues in its development application that the new height would remain within the 60-metre limit recommended in the council's 2017 Wickham Master Plan.
Mr Desson said the rise in interest rates was "definitely affecting everyone", but Multipart was undaunted.
"Projects have slowed, but it's not the first time and it won't be the last. We'll just keep calm and carry on."
Mr Desson's comments support the views of GWH director Hilton Grugeon, who told the Newcastle Herald last week that Newcastle's development boom had morphed into the new normal.
Mr Grugeon took Newcastle lord mayor Nuatali Nelmes and the media on a tour of GWH's new 19-storey Sky Residences building between Hunter and King streets on Wednesday.
The company has the revised 805 Hunter Street plans before the council and has started demolition on its 22-storey complex at 1 National Park Street.
"Again, it's not a boom anymore; it's just steady progress, which beats a boom every time, because booms bring the inevitable bust," Mr Grugeon said on Wednesday.
He said interest in apartments "has not changed much" with the rise in interest rates.
"The buyers are more people, particularly for the bigger apartments, who are downsizing, and for the refugees from down south everything is well priced for them.
"There is a big market from that, and people downsizing from the suburbs from family homes into this kind of lifestyle is great for the community, because they can be recycled for families."
The new 805 Hunter Street plan, which has a second frontage to Denison Street, brings the development up to the 60-metre height limit for the block.
"The acceptance that we're going higher there in the west end than the east is great because we're not detracting from the heritage and the cathedral on The Hill," Mr Grugeon said.
"We have beautiful architecture through there that we shouldn't lose, but we haven't got that to the west, because the west was always the poor end of town."
The city's tallest height limits are 90 metres, or 30 storeys, in parts of the west end, where DOMA Group and Thirdi are planning separate residential projects which will reach or slightly surpass that ceiling.
DOMA said last week that it would start work on both towers in the Store development early next year.
Thirdi said on Wednesday that it planned to call for tenders from a shortlist of builders at the end of the year for its Dairy Farmers project and also would build both towers at the same time.
Asked whether Newcastle West could support even higher buildings, Mr Grugeon said: "Everything's possible engineering-wise, but there becomes a stage where something's uneconomic."
The stream of development activity appears to be achieving City of Newcastle's goal of establishing the city's new central business district in the west end, where the council itself set up home in 2019.
The development activity has followed the NSW government's decision to close the former heavy rail line at Wickham in 2015 and install light rail.
Cr Nelmes described the surge in high-rise buildings as "phenomenal" after years of bitter disagreements over the city's future.
"People spent decades arguing about everything in Newcastle. The only thing that ever happened was they had an argument. Nothing ever happened," she said.
"The city was left to flounder for decades.
"I can't point to another period in Newcastle's development where this much progressive change has happened in such a short period of time."
Cr Nelmes said the rise in investment was due to the council "sticking to our vision and not getting knocked off course".
"The city will benefit from this period of exceptional growth.
"The development that's occurred in Newcastle in the last seven years hasn't happened by accident.
"These have been very long-held plans to push height and density to Newcastle West, where the city could actually handle it.
"The city wasn't working in that it didn't have a critical mass of people living in the city area, both in the city's east and the west end."
Cr Nelmes said the light rail service would be more successful as the population increased but emphasised it must extend to the proposed Hunter Park redevelopment site at Broadmeadow.
"That type of infrastructure always makes more sense when you have the density of people living back in the city, and we've seen a significant increase in population in our CBD area.
"We always knew you needed rail tracks, whether it be heavy rail or light rail, to give certainty to that development that needed to occur.
"We never saw this leg of light rail just operating in isolation."
She said there were signs of commercial activity increasing at street level as more people moved into the inner-city, and the influx would make the city safer.
"What I'm seeing is a vision we set for the city coming to fruition in a very short period of time."
Newcastle West/Wickham development in past three years
Stella apartments (open)
10 Bishopsgate Street, Wickham, Thirdi, $39m, 149 apartments
Store offices (open)
6 Stewart Avenue, DOMA Group, $54m, 15,000sqm
Store transport interchange and car park (open)
854 Hunter Street, DOMA Group, $20m
Lume apartments (open)
21 Honeysuckle Drive, DOMA Group, $58m, 148 apartments
Verve apartments (open)
464 King Street, Miller Property, $73m, 197 apartments
Lindstrom apartments (under construction)
9 Union Street, Wickham, $3m, 18 apartments
Bowline apartments (under construction)
10 Dangar Street, Wickham, Multipart Property, $61m, 118 apartments
727 HQ offices (under construction)
727 Hunter Street, HYG, $49m, 15,000sqm
Huntington apartments (under construction)
35 Honeysuckle Drive, DOMA Group, $42m, 87 apartments
Horizon on the Harbour apartments (under construction)
45 Honeysuckle Drive, Miller Property, $59m, 110 apartments
Little National Hotel/offices (under construction)
42 Honeysuckle Drive, DOMA Group, $45m, 148 hotel rooms, 5400sqm
Office building (under construction)
653 Hunter Street, Altim Property, $10m, 3000sqm
One apartments (demolition starting)
1 National Park Street, GWH, $70m, 193 apartments
Store apartments (construction to start 2023)
854 Hunter Street, DOMA Group, $130m, 365 apartments
Apartment building (DA approved)
20 Denison Street, Denison Street Apartments Pty Ltd, $28m, 74 apartments
Aurora apartments (DA approved, selling)
990 Hunter Street, Brilliance Developments, $24m, 62 apartments
Dairy Farmers Towers apartments (DA approved, selling)
924 Hunter Street, Thirdi, $110m, 182 apartments
Neufort apartments (DA approved)
73 Railway Lane, Wickham, Blake Organisation, $95m, 190 apartments
Apartment building (DA lodged)
805 Hunter Street, GWH, $30m, 72 apartments
Watervue apartments (DA lodged)
647 Hunter Street, Next Level Seven Pty Ltd, $55m, 106 apartments
Office building (DA coming)
775 Hunter Street, Spartohori, $10m, 5000sqm
Apartment building (design competition complete)
711 Hunter Street, St Hilliers/Spotlight Group, $100m, 267 apartments
Honeysuckle HQ (tenders submitted)
Corner Honeysuckle Drive/Hannell Street, proposed residential/commercial site, potential $500+ capital investment
Student housing (public proposal)
879 Hunter Street (Cambridge Hotel site), Linkcity, $50m (Herald estimate), 500 residents
Capital investment: $1.2b (excluding Honeysuckle HQ)
Total apartments: 2338 (excluding Honeysuckle HQ, student housing)
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