'Sydney's best address' is on sale

Property Observer

The apartment that has rightful claims of being Sydney’s number 1 address has quietly become available for sale.

It is the apartment on the tip of the top floor of 1 Macquarie Street, the closest home to the Opera House anyone can buy.

The apartment was long owned by the Moran family of Moran Health Care in the building known as Bennelong, and to some as The Toaster.

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But a caveat indicates the current owner, and seller is actually the veteran property developer, Keith Johnson.

He and partner Natalie Habib are in the midst of gutting and fitting out the 360 sq m space to a design by the noted architect Koichi Takada.

It seems all the drilling alerted other occupants in the well-heeled block to Greta Moran’s recent departure to her son, Mark’s luxury Vaucluse retirement home.

The ensuing knocking at their apartment front door has seen some of the stickybeaks turn into potential buyers so Johnson, ever the opportunist, is seeing if there was a too good to true offer out there.

Dominic Ong, the Australia’s Head of Asian Markets at Knight Frank has been enlisted to undertake an offmarket tour to China.

No details have emerged as to its recent or envisaged pricing, but there is no doubting its potential having set prior records.

This year the building saw a $10.5 million sale when the 2GB radio broadcaster Alan Jones bought six floors down. In 2015 developer Sam Arnaout spent $18 million buying from the Maloney publican family on the 11th floor.

The Sydney price record stands at $96,000 a sqm when $27 million was paid off the plan in the Opera Residences development – five doors up Macquarie Street bordering the Cahill Expressway on the site of the old Coca Cola Amatil building.

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The former chief of Tenix, Robert Salteri and his wife Kelly have been pinpointed as its buyers.

This week the casino operator Crown Resorts announced the $60 million sale of two floors within its luxury Sydney development to James Packer.

Johnson is on a high at the moment as his major project Trinity Point was the recipient this month of the regional award for Best in Asia Pacific in Hotel Architecture category at the International Property Awards.

The former Miss Universe Jennifer Hawkins is the face of the Trinity Point residential, hotel and marina project at Lake Macquarie.

This article was first published in the Sunday Telegraph.