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Ten years ago Sydney developer David Hawes (Glenside Group) and Andrew Callaghan (CB Richard Ellis) identified
a burgeoning market in the northern suburbs: strata offices.
David had successfully completed two strata-office buildings
in the Austlink Business Park, Belrose—both having sold well with units achieving a doubling of their price within six years.
Anticipating another small business demand, in 2006 he began
construction of Garigal; comprising 83 premium quality units,
it is Sydney’s first ecologically sustainable strata-office building.
Why make Garigal sustainable?
“I wanted to change the way I did business and put the environment into my projects. I could see the impact my
buildings had beyond their sites; the way they used energy
and water could have a positive or negative impact on natural resources. And I could see the prices of energy and water increasing as we run out of these essential resources.
Despite having completing our initial plans we looked to
change them as they took no account of the environment.
I decided to re-examine the whole financial premise of this building and to focus on making Garigal sustainable; to use
the least amounts of water and energy possible.
So I asked my project team to review their work and make
the project sustainable—to redesign it to avoid connecting
to Sydney Water’s sewer and eliminate the need for an
electricity substation.
I retained Michael Mobbs to coach my team and we worked hard on the 80% of things we could do. We didn’t beat ourselves up over the 20% of things we could not have an effect on, such as changing the layout of the block.
We overcame the western sun by using blinds and installing overhanging balconies that are huge compared to the rest
of the industry.
And many other features to drive down running costs and maximise occupants’ enjoyment of this unique working environment, including: natural cross-flow ventilation,
recycling sewage and rainwater harvesting for toilet
flushing and garden irrigation.”
David Hawes, Glenside Group
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Home away from home
“Our new development strategy appears to be ideal for the strata offices market because strata office owners regard their offices similarly to their homes and they take real pride in them.
So, it makes sense for owners of strata offices to want to
reduce the amount of energy and water they use and to have
real control over their costs of doing business. To many people, low operating costs are as important as the purchase price.”
David Hawes, Glenside Group
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