For three decades, the TOGA Group’s Adina development on Crown Street has shown the way as a successful example of mixed use planning. Now the group is working towards an even larger development at the other end of Surry Hills at the Surry Hills Shopping Village.
Toga Group chief executive Fabrizio Perilli’s vision for inner city development is for “vertical villages.” These, he says, combine retail, residential, and commercial use with hotel accommodation, but importantly also include green space.
“The Surry Hills site allows us to deliver green space within an elevated environment because it is such a big site,” says Perilli. “By green space I mean meaningful space which gives people opportunity to do different things, from meeting in groups to spending more quiet and individual time.”
TOGA, which also owns the Adina at Chippendale and the Vibe Hotel on Goulbourn street within the Urban Village footprint, has cleared City of Sydney approval for its $100 million Surry Hills Village development.
The plans still need to be approved by the State Government but if no serious hurdles are encountered the timetable is to begin construction in mid 2019, and then progressively open the new development from late 2021 or early 2022.
City of Sydney endorsement resulted in TOGA announcing an architectural competition under the city’s Design Excellence Strategy, and local architects SJB and Architect Prineas in collaboration with Redfern landscape architectural firm Aspect Studies were selected to further develop the site concept.
“Excellence in design is very important to us and we try and work with the best architects,” says Fabrizio Perilli. “We want to build something that will last the test of time, so when we develop something we want to be sure that it looks good not just on day one, but in year ten, twenty and thirty and beyond.”
Perilli describes the Surry Hills Village concept as a “classic mixed use precinct” with retail, food and beverage on the lower levels and residential and hotel accommodation above.
“It’s a matter of creating and adding to the local environment,” he says. “The development needs to integrate the lower and upper levels and the public spaces to interact with the community on a daily basis and add to the flavour that is already there.”
Perilli says TOGA takes its responsibilities as a local corporate citizen seriously, and the company is a platinum sponsor of the upcoming fete at the Bourke Street School in addition to ongoing sponsorship at the Belvoir Street Theatre.
“That is a fundamental part of what we do and it’s the right thing for us to be part of the communities we build in,” he says.
