The Urban Developer

How Sammut Pulled Off a $100m Site Amalgamation

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Sydney developer Sammut Group has unveiled a $350-million masterplan that it hopes will transform the Cronulla CBD in the city’s southern beach suburbs.

Themixed use urban renewal project, a joint venture with Alceon Group, incorporate 5500sq m after Sammut Group was able to pull off a complex site aggregation between 3 and 23 Kingsway that cost more than $100 million.

The development, known as Vue, comprises 112 apartments, commercial and retail space. Flagship launch tenant Harris Farm Markets will open its biggest store in Sydney on the site.

In this TUD+ Briefing, Sammut Group director Allen Sammut discusses the complex amalgamation of the site—which took over a year and included 24 stakeholders across nine properties—its longstanding partnership with Alceon, and the vision and timeline for the project.

“The vision has been in my mind for a long time now and there have been a lot of moving parts to amalgamate the site and bring everyone together,” Sammut said.

“The main driving force was to put a full-line supermarket in Cronulla, which is something Cronulla doesn’t have and has been desperately in need of.

“We are hoping to start construction on the project mid-2022 and it will take about 24 months to complete,” Sammut said.

The proposed development supersedes plans for a 21-storey boutique hotel that were mooted for the site in 2018.

It is the third project Sammut Group and Alceon have partnered on—two in Cronulla and and one on the Gold Coast.

Sammut said the partnership had been a game changer for the business founded by his father 50 year ago, which specialises in luxury apartment and mixed-use developments in the Cronulla area.

“It has been a great partnership across a number of projects and we structure each deal differently,” Sammut said.

“We usually operate with a 50-50 equity call on a particular project and the profit split is then worked out based on a number of different factors and what each group has brought to that particular development.”