With an impressive portfolio of luxury mixed-use developments, and many more in the pipeline, Crown Group has come a long way from its modest beginnings 25 years ago.
One of Australia’s most awarded property developers, Crown Group has completed 25 years in business, with the well-deserved milestone marking the company’s successful and continuing journey from being a single residential project developer in Bondi Junction, to a vertically integrated, privately owned group developing residential, retail and hotels in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Los Angeles.
Founded by architect Iwan Sunito and engineer Paul Sathio in 1994, Crown Group has earned a reputation for being one of Sydney’s most dynamic developers, with much of the company’s success attributed to having its own construction division. It also owns and manages many of its large-scale retail and hotel offerings together with several industrial sites combining to provide multiple, strong, ongoing income streams.
In its milestone year, Crown Group has a $5 billion development pipeline, which will deliver almost 8000 apartments and serviced apartments, in addition to approximately 30,000sqm of retail space. Known for making bold architectural statements, the company continues to push the envelope on design by working with critically acclaimed local and international architects.
This has been acknowledged and applauded by industry with Crown Group winning more than 50 international, national and local awards.
Elaborating on their journey, chairman and group CEO Iwan Sunito said, “The company has experienced three evolutions in our 25-year history. Firstly, we started as a small-scale developer of single building apartment projects. Our second evolution was to develop mixed-use projects incorporating retail and hotels together with residential apartments now synonymous with resort style amenity. We are now embarking on our third evolution, the development of larger precincts with more facilities, specialised services, a vast array of amenity and the incorporation of build to rent.”
“Our focus has always been acquiring sites in prime locations with the opportunity for the greatest value uplift and never compromising on quality and design, even in the toughest times,” Sunito reflected.
According to Sunito, the pandemic has created a huge shortage of supply of apartments in metro CBDs. As international borders start to open, the major capital cities will struggle to meet the demand of the influx of returning Australian expats and students, he added.
“The pandemic has also uncovered new trends in the way people want to live and work – spacious living and working areas in the home with an abundance of natural light, close connection to greenery, access to private and communal outside space and resort style amenity. This has always been the mainstay of our design,” Sunito added.
Some of Crown Group’s accomplishments in the mixed-use space include the upcoming Mastery by Crown Group in Waterloo, The Grand Eastlakes in Sydney’s eastern suburbs, a sculptural town in Melbourne’s Southbank art district, a luxury riverfront project in Brisbane and a mixed use project in downtown Los Angeles.
