Creating the World’s Best Waterfront

Publications

Sydney’s Western Harbour Precinct: A Charter for the World’s Best Waterfront

October 2023

Our Charter was born out of the 2022 New Sydney Waterfront Summit, that embraced the challenge for Sydney’s Western Harbour Precinct, with the benefit of $12 billion further transformational investment over the next decade, to become “the World’s Best Waterfront.” It responds to the obvious next question… “What would make it so?” 

The 2023 Charter is an evidence-based framework for collaboration to inspire and guide the business members of the New Sydney Waterfront Business Improvement District (BID) to invest and collaborate with each other, the community, the City of Sydney and NSW Government, in a collective aspiration to make a great waterfront precinct even better. 

Great Waterfronts: Benchmark Study

November 2022

The Sydney waterfront is of singular and enduring significance to the economic prosperity, cultural vitality and social connectivity of the city. Its environmental qualities and the diversity of experiences it supports are critical platforms for our global competitiveness and appeal. Today the waterfront of Sydney’s inner western harbour is a vibrant and well loved part of the city, home to a thriving commercial, residential and cultural community. It is an important place of celebration and of ceremony; somewhere that visitors to our city come to understand who we are and what is important to our community. 

This study has been commissioned by the New Sydney Waterfront Company, to explore the central question of what characterises a world class waterfront. By reference to a series of global case studies it seeks to establish the lessons learned from three generations of waterfront development together with the critical success factors that will amplify and accelerate success.

A Vision for Western Harbour: Building a World-Class Precinct

December 2019

Knowing that partnerships can create great places, the Western Harbour Alliance worked collaboratively with government to contribute towards existing and future efforts to transform Sydney’s Western Harbour into a world-class waterfront loved by locals and visitors alike.

The purpose of the Western Harbour Precinct Strategy was to enrich ongoing work and government direction with a holistic vision from stakeholders; and then identify challenges and possible solutions for the Precinct to achieve its full potential.

New Sydney Waterfront Company’s vision was informed by this foundational planning commissioned in 2019.

Sydney’s Western Harbour in 2030 - a retrospective view

Sydney’s Western Harbour Precinct (now commonly known as “The Waterfront”) is a world-famous district, loved by locals and visitors alike, and renowned for its distinctive 24-7 vibrant energy. After the traditional iconic Harbour Bridge, Opera House and Bondi Beach, the Waterfront is the most recognised and popular destination in Sydney. Visitation across the Precinct has doubled in ten years, while the experience for visitors has consistently been rated better year on year. At the same time, the location, accessibility and 24/7 atmosphere of the Precinct has made it the most sought after place to work in the city, with occupancy at capacity, being constantly outstripped by demand, and property values have doubled since 2020. Its continually-enhanced amenity and reputation has also made it an ever more desirable place to live, and the local community’s pride has become an important contributor to the Precinct’s unique appeal. The Waterfront is now Sydney’s primary “shopfront”, where visitors, investors, talented executives, students and event-goers come to experience the best of what contemporary Sydney has to offer – all in one place.

This was not always the case. Just ten years ago, and for decades prior to that, the prime harbour-front districts of Walsh Bay, Barangaroo, Cockle Bay, Darling Harbour, Pyrmont, Ultimo and Blackwattle Bay were a disparate, disconnected and under-valued set of haphazardly adjacent neighbourhoods and city blocks. It took the vision of the local business community, in establishing a “Business Improvement District” partnership with the NSW Government and the City of Sydney in 2021, to bring those extraordinary assets together, for all the world to appreciate and enjoy. 

 

At the heart of this transformation was innovative technology. Consolidating visitor data, content and programming, and using that platform to enhance and present the whole-of-Precinct visitor experience was the catalyst. A then Australian-first Precinct-wide analytics platform provided insights that offered unprecedented intelligence to enhance members’ businesses and government placemaking. An always-on marketing platform presents the Waterfront in a consolidated way, through the collective experiences and events across the Precinct 24-7-365. It uses the hundreds of screens and digital touch points across the Precinct, and a dedicated website to point prospective visitors to “feature” events and/or experiences, together with complementary “secondary” (before and after) experiences. It also provides the best ways of getting there, home, and between the experiences. 

The activations are curated and co-ordinated, to provide visitors with contemporary-Sydney-brand-relevant experiences. A new Sydney-signature Festival (the Sydney Harbour of Life Festival) is a major annual drawcard for locals and tourists, and has played a significant role in elevating the Sydney Waterfront as a destination.

Getting there, home, and between the experiences is quick and easy, because the historical access and connectivity issues have been resolved. The Waterfront’s two metro stations – Barangaroo and Pyrmont – have transformed access to the Precinct, and direct connection to other key tourist destination of Sydney Olympic Park and Parramatta has further increased length of stay and visitor expenditure. 

The Waterfront has played a vital role in the restoration of Sydney’s 24-hour economy, and the city’s related reputation. The Waterfront has become a powerful Sydney promotional “postcard”, supporting the traditional Bridge and Opera House with a richer, more diverse and experience-based story, that is attracting return visitors to Sydney with the promise of more interesting, new and distinctive things to do here than there ever before. 

In the background was an extraordinary capital works program, which saw a further $5bn worth of Precinct-enhancing investment, across half-a-dozen major concurrent projects. The BID enabled that enormous program of work to be consolidated, co-ordinated and aligned, maximising benefits for users of the Precinct during and after construction, and returns for the investors – government and private sector. The initiative snowballed in the early 2020s, after early success and momentum attracted a second wave of participants, hundreds of small and medium sized businesses who in turn benefitted from and contributed to the new vibrancy of the Pyrmont Peninsula.

And you're invited to play a
key role in making it happen.