Plans for a commercial office tower at its Harbourside Shopping Centre have been scrapped by Mirvac in favor of an unsolicited proposal to the New South Wales (NSW) government.

The new Darling Harbour proposal would see the center revitalized into a mixed-use, retail, commercial and residential development, which would include public domain works.

This follows their unsuccessful attempts to develop the site in 2016, submitting plans for a mixed-use tower along with the revamped shopping center.

The state government agreed that the new proposal “in concept form, was of sufficient interest to warrant further development and progression to a more defined project” however they had not approved it.

It was understood Mirvac will submit a new development application for Harbourside in the next few months, which will again be subject to comments from relevant stakeholders.

Mirvac originally purchased the property for AU$252 million (US$170 million) in 2013 and is the long-term leaseholder of the site.

The shopping center on Darling Drive has a gross lettable area of 20,639 square meters and an annual income of AU$169.8 million (US$115 million).

There are bigger plans for the area with the AU$3.4 billion (US$2.3 billion) regeneration of Darling Harbour by Lendlease.

Mirvac managing director Susan Lloyd-Hurwitz said Harbourside had a lot of potential on the purchase of the property.

“Harbourside presents an opportunity to gain greater market share in the Sydney CBD area by acquiring a key retail asset with exposure to the strongly performing food, catering and entertainment categories,” she said.

“The acquisition provides us with a repositioning opportunity and gives Mirvac a dominant position in the catchment together with our existing Broadway Shopping Centre.”

Harbourside opened in 1988 and prior to that was the Darling Harbour Goods Yard.

Mirvac also plans to start construction later in 2020 on an AU$1 billion (US$670 million) skyscraper nearby at 505 George Street with Coombes Property Group.

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