Bowral Commercial Development

Bowral, NSW

When a fire in 2019 left Bowral’s main-street shopping arcade structurally unsound, Paynter Dixon’s Insurance division made the site safe and cleared the way for a new beginning. Sharjag Pty Ltd then entrusted us to deliver its replacement: a landmark two-storey, 2,273 m² mixed-use building in the heart of the Southern Highlands. Seven retail and three commercial tenancies are arranged around an internal arcade and skylit courtyard, wrapped in arched face brickworkthat honours the area’s local heritage character.

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Few projects test a delivery team like this one. The development application was initially rejected by council and, with strong community and local planning support, was taken to the Land and Environment Court and won. Approval was followed by extensive negotiations with council, water and sewer authorities and other local agencies, while the site’s local heritage significance and the Southern Highlands climate, including Section J energy and wind-loading requirements, shaped the design.

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Our team took control, retendering the engagement and mobilising Northrop and Orion as replacement engineers, then guiding them through previous inspection reports, site walk-throughs and subcontractor input until they were confident to certify the completed works, keeping the path to occupation open. Historic asbestos, embedded in the old slab and up to a metre deep in the fill, was resolved by redesigning to a suspended slab, avoiding the cost and disruption of excavating the entire site. The glazed arcade skylight demanded equal rigour, with our quality, construction and project managers working alongside the façade engineer and glazing manufacturer to resolve every connection between steel and glass for a watertight result. All of this was delivered on Bowral’s main street and a busy side street, where significant investment in pedestrian and traffic management kept shoppers moving safely past the works.

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Speed to market was the client’s priority. Rather than finishing documentation and going to a full market tender, an open book, cost-plus approach let us start remediation and substructure works while design was finalised and trade packages were still being tendered, getting the project out of the ground sooner. Every trade was openly tendered and only our preliminaries were fixed, giving the client full visibility of costs, while a high proportion of the work went to local trades, keeping investment in the Bowral community.

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Design improvements added further value. The incoming structural engineer rationalised slab thicknesses and steel member sizing and spacing. The signature brick façade was crafted to sit naturally within Bowral’s historic streetscape and to restore a landmark presence on Bong Bong Street. Full-scale prototype panels, built in a dedicated area on site and tested with different mortar types, proved the intricate coursing could be achieved before the arches were laid, resulting in a high-quality solid clay brick façade. A staged handover gave national retailers, including Mecca and Seed, early access from 17 August to begin their fitouts ahead of final completion.

key features

• Two-storey mixed-use building, 2,273 m² GFA

• Land and Environment Court approval and extensive authority negotiation

• Open-book, cost-plus delivery with an early start on site

• Suspended slab solution over asbestos-contaminated fill

• Structural redesign rationalising slab and steel sizes

• On-site prototyping of heritage-inspired arched brickwork

• Live main-street site with full pedestrian and traffic management

• High proportion of local trades engaged

• Staged handover for national retailers - 7 retail and 3 commercial tenancies

• Zero lost time injuries