“Marathon” for Packer and company
Crown Resorts chief James Packer is frustrated by the glacial pace of government approvals for his planned $2 billion casino, hotel and apartment complex at Barangaroo South, according to the website CalvinAyre.com.
Crown’s application has stalled because the New South Wales planning department has concerns about “traffic management, heritage impacts and encroachment on public land.”
Packer has described the process as “frustrating.” He told the Sydney Morning Herald, “It’s been a marathon process to get where we are in Sydney… At our end we really want to get moving.”
The project, to be constructed by developer Lend Lease, has been in the works since August 2012, and originally was to open in November 2019. The delays were caused in part by a substantial reworking of the project, which relocated the development from the harbor to the mainland and doubled its size. The 275-meter high (90-story) tower will include a 6,805-square-meter (73,000-square-foot) VIP casino along with hotel rooms, multimillion-dollar apartments and a retail quarter.
