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SCMP Reporter

A CONSORTIUM involving the prolific unit developer, Denis O'Neill, plans to cash in on the rapid gentrification of Sydney's southern industrial region with an A$64 million ($354 million) apartment project.

  The 776-unit complex will be built at 177-219 Mitchell Road, Alexandria, on a 4.3-hectare lot adjoining Sydney Park.

  An application was lodged late last month with South Sydney Council, which has calledr O'Neill's Addenbroke Pty Ltd.

  Mr O'Neill also has a smaller $12.5-million project across the road at Huntley Green with 161 apartments, of which 60 per cent have been pre-sold.

  Mr Mutton said the new development would comprise 11 separate residential buildings of between four and eight levels around the perimeter of the site.

  Each building will contain a mix of apartments with maisonettes on the top floors.

  The plan allows for 77 three-bedroom apartments with seven three-bedroom maisonettes, 473 two-bedders, 84 two-bed maisonettes, 107 one-bedders with 27 one-bedroom maisonettes.

   The development will include a small shopping complex with a Clancy's grocery store, a child-care centre and gymnasium, two swimming pools and two tennis courts.

  ''It's like making a small village,'' Mr Mutton said.

  ''It gives that end of King Street a real push . . . you are going to put about 2,000 people in the area.''   There are parking slots for 1,004 vehicles, including 857 underground spaces for residents only.

  Mr O'Neill is also involved in the high profile residential conversion of the former Goldsbrough Mort warehouse at Pyrmont, the option over which was exercised in February for about $15 million.

  Although the project is still to get banking finance, more than $90 million of pre-sales have been achieved with contracts exchanged on more than 200 apartments and deposits taken on another 160 units.

  A spokesman for the developer, Anthony Rice, said he was pleased with the sales progress of the 525-unit project despite a 35 per cent drop-out rate of buyers.

  ''Our conversion rate is about 65 per cent, which is much better than other projects that are suffering a fall-over rate of between 50 per cent and 60 per cent,'' he said.

  Ninety per cent of the sales to date had been to local buyers and 70 per cent of those would be owner-occupiers.

  Mr Rice said buyers had been attracted to the project by its affordability and location. The property is just one of two freehold sites at Darling Harbour and its warehouse character offered by the big windows, high ceilings and wooden floors had been embraced by Sydney.

  Mr Rice said demolition work was likely to begin in six weeks.

  Meanwhile, the group is finalising plans for its conversion of the former IBM building at the northern end of Sydney's central business district into 220 apartments.

  The group bought the vacant multi-level office tower for $22 million last year.

  Marketing of the one-, two-and three-bedroom units will start within two months at prices ranging from the mid-$200,000 mark to $1 million for the penthouse suites.

  Sydney's inner Western Suburbs have been a focus of the residential building boom, along with the central business district and fringes, Pyrmont and the lower North Shore.

  A South Sydney Council planner said the Local Environmental Plan, which was gazetted in 1992, provided for the conversion of disused industrial land and buildings under a zoning plan which allowed for residential uses with some commercial elements.

    Weekend Australian a meeting to gauge public opinion on the sizeable project.

  The project was lodged by architect John Mutton and Associates for M 



Mini-village for Sydney