Australian gaming and hospitality operator Crown Resorts is extending its search for buyers of apartments at Crown Sydney, currently under development on Sydney’s waterfront, as just a quarter of the apartments at the tower have been sold so far, Bloomberg reports.
Crown first presented its plan for the construction of a hotel, casino, and residential complex in Sydney’s Barangaroo suburb back in 2012. The company eventually received a final approval from the New South Wales Planning Assessment Commission in the summer of 2016 after years of efforts to convince state officials and residents of the area that the project would meet all the necessary requirements and would be a major contributor to the local economy.
Crown broke ground on what would be a 75-story tower in the fall of 2016. The property is expected to be completed in 2021. It will feature a gaming floor, a six-star hotel and 82 residences, including a A$100-million penthouse.
The company has been looking to attract buyers for the luxury apartments that will be located above the hotel portion of the tower in hopes to cover partially the A$2.2-billion cost of the major development scheme.
Bloomberg reports that following six months of marketing efforts, just a little over a quarter of the residences were sold and mostly Australian buyers have expressed interest in those. Crown is now extending the hunt for potential buyers to Hong Kong, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Singapore as well as to the United Kingdom and the United States.
In an interview with Bloomberg, Crown’s Vice President of Strategy and Development Todd Nisbet said that sales were actually ahead of their expectations. It is believed that interest in the residences will grow once potential buyers are be able to see the finished product.
Asked about Crown Sydney’s casino portion, Mr. Nisbet downsized its importance, saying that the gaming floor would not play a significant part in the business and that it would only be known to those exclusively arriving to gamble.
Crown found itself in a big trouble in the fall of 2016 when more than 20 staff members, including the company’s Head of VIP Operations, Jason O’Connor, were detained by Chinese police for promoting gambling across the mainland. The arrests had a massive impact on the company’s VIP business as Chinese gamblers withdrew from Australia, fearing the consequences of possibly appearing on authorities’ radar screens.
Harbor View Legal Battle
Reports emerged earlier this week that Crown could find itself locked in a legal issue as an expanded nearby development project could block views of the Opera House and Harbour Bridge from the company’s tower.
The Barangaroo Central scheme has recently been expanded from 59,000 square meters to 150,000 square meters. The New South Wales Government has given the nod to the expansion so that costs arising from the addition of a train station in the area be offset.
However, Crown has argued that the expanded project is threatening to block harbor and Opera views from its hotel. Under previous agreements with local and state authorities, the company was supposed to have secured such views from the tower’s north-east hotel rooms. Crown was planning to charge A$800 per night for these rooms, once the hotel was fully operational. The blocked view of harbor landmarks could thus cost the company millions of dollars.
It is believed that the view dispute will appear before court within a month, if the parties fail to resolve it.
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