St Hilliers Property has successfully negotiated a new Development Approval (DA) to increase the lettable area of its proposed commercial development at Talavera Road, North Ryde and significantly increased the end value of the property to more than $140 million.

St Hilliers is positioning the Talavera Road property for a fourth fund to be offered by St Hilliers Funds Management, which will be a development to core fund.   

The revised DA scheme maximises the Talavera Road property's appeal to tenants and end-users, which has increased the total floor area of the development by approximately 4000 square metres.

The development now comprises 32,000 square metres of A-Grade commercial accommodation over three buildings of six levels.

Included in the revised DA is a Voluntary Planning Agreement, which involves St Hilliers dedicating as parkland 4,600 square metres of the Talavera Road site. A natural watercourse flows through this part of the site and it will be rehabilitated and landscaped as a major aesthetic feature of the development.

St Hilliers also took the opportunity to submit a new overall design scheme for the development with the new DA. Leading sustainability initiatives to achieve a high level of occupant amenity and improve energy consumption have been incorporated in the design, which is aimed at achieving 5 Green Star and 5ABGR rating for the development.

Among the sustainability initiatives are:

• A centralized core providing large, open floor plates
• Use of a high performance glass curtain wall system to reduce heating and cooling loss without impacting on levels of natural light
• Atriums in each building to enhance natural light
• Spacious balconies on each floor providing additional staff 'breakout' areas
• Paint, wood and carpet products with low Volatile Organic Compound emissions.

St Hilliers is also conducting an assessment of a gas powered co-generation system to provide power for the building. Heat generated by the generator will be converted to provide cooling for the building. Consideration is also being given to installing plant to treat black water for reticulation of the landscaped parkland. 

Talavera Road is located opposite the Macquarie Shopping Centre and well positioned to take advantage of major infrastructure improvements.

The area has seen major changes from market gardens in the 1950s, to large scale industrial buildings and more recently to leading edge business park buildings. It is now the favoured location for the headquarters of major multinational companies such as Sony, Ericsson, Microsoft, Siemens, Sanyo, Proctor + Gamble, Sanofi-Aventis, Johnson + Johnson and Optus.