THE RECENT UDIA NATIONAL AWARDS FOR EXCELLENCE CELEBRATED THE BEST DEVELOPMENT PROJECTS ACROSS AUSTRALIA. WITH EACH ENTRY ALREADY A WINNER IN THEIR OWN STATES, THE QUALITY OF THE ENTRANTS IS EXTRAORDINARY.
With each entry already a winner in their own States, the quality of the entrants was extraordinary. WA led the way on the night winning three categories, Residential Development, Environmental Excellence and Affordable Development, with Queensland and New South Wales taking out two categories each and Victoria one. The prestigious President’s Award went to Queensland Project “The Village Coorparoo” which broke new ground with their inner-city apartments in Brisbane.
The judges stressed they were looking for projects which were not simply excellently delivered but also provided innovation and leadership.
WA winners were Invita Apartments for Affordable Development with Cygnia Cove taking out the Environmental Excellence and Residential Development Categories. Invita Apartments by Peet Limited and BGC in a joint venture, are at the Village at Wellard. The Village is the first transit-orientated community on Perth’s southern train line. The project reinforced that well planned development, near amenity and transport, can work in locations where traditionally detached housing has been constructed. Commercially successful, stage one ranged from $280,000 – $330,000 with 95 percent selling off the plan in the first couple of months.
Cygnia Cove is a completely different project, by the river and just eight minutes from the CBD. It took developer Richard Noble more than ten years to turn a vision into reality, successfully integrating the new development into the existing natural environment and incorporating the site’s cultural heritage and already established buildings.
The development of Cygnia Cove has resulted in the successful transformation of a contaminated and degraded site into a community with vastly improved environmental attributes, a rehabilitated wetland designed (successfully) as a Black Swan breeding sanctuary with three cygnets born in 2012, the first in Clontarf Bay in decades.
Other winners included Little Projects for the repurposed Tip Top Bakery in Brunswick East which has been redeveloped as high quality apartments. Esque, Mosman by HELM took out the medium-density award and Greater Springield by Springfield Land Corporation, Lend Lease and Mirvac took out the Masterplanned Development Category.
Entry for the Western Australian Awards for Excellence have opened, with the winners going through to the 2016 National Awards.