Barana Group seek to make mixed-use Kent Street, Sydney CBD tower taller

The Greg Shand-owned Barana Group are set to tweak their Kent Street, Sydney CBD mixed-use development.

They've submitted a proposal to the City of Sydney Council which would sees the $88 million Fjmt-designed tower no longer interconnected along the bottom levels.

Barana now want the towers to stand separately at 189-197 Kent Street. They are also seeking to raise the height of the approved development site to 110 metres from 80 metres, as well as bring the north tower height closer to the south tower.

Barana's wording suggests they aren't expecting to see the amendment refused, given the development sits within a 'tower cluster' area.

The original proposal was for the towers to be interconnected. Image source: City of Sydney

"This ‘amending’ DA seeks approval for additional height on the southern tower, removal of interconnected massing between the two towers, increased width of the through-site link, increased ground level setbacks to Kent Street, a resultant altered building envelope, and other design minor changes," the submission read.

"Barana Group seeks to increase the building height of the south tower to meet the street frontage of the southern neighbour. This will allow a more gradual transition from the 80 height of the northern neighbour to the 110 m height of the southern neighbour separated by the through-site link forming a shadow joint.

"These changes have been informed by the Central Sydney Planning Strategy and accompanying amendments to the Sydney Local Environmental Plan 2012, expected to be gazetted in mid-2021, which will increase the height limit for the site to 110m and identify it as being within a ‘tower cluster’ area.

"The proposed amendments do not alter the key approved key development metrics, including the number of dwellings, gross floor area and car parking numbers/layout.

There will be 125 apartments across one of the 24 storey towers.

A stage one development application was originally approved in September 2015. Five years later a new stage one development application was approved, superseding the 2014 application approval.

That was modified in December 2020 to reflect the stage two development application design from Fjmt, who won a Competitive Design Alternatives Process which was held in accordance with the City of Sydney Competitive Design Policy and Design Excellence Strategy.

Fjmt’s scheme was selected by the panel as the winning design, beating design entries from Koichi Takada Architects, Woods Bagot and Bates Smart.