$26 million Circular Quay Opera Residences penthouse sale in $57 million swoop

The Opera Residences penthouse at Circular Quay has been sold off the plan for $26 million, setting a new Australian apartment record.

The four-bedroom abode sits atop the 20-storey Macquarie Street complex that will replace the Coke-Cola Amatil building. It works out to be $95,000 per sq m.

Title Tattle gleans the undisclosed "local" buyer also bought two of the three-bedroom apartments below taking her total purchases to $57 million.

The mother is said to have purchased the other two apartments for her children, CBRE whispers suggest.

The 104 apartments of Opera Residences formally go on sale this Saturday. 

The Australian apartment record was previously held by the $25 million penthouse in the Fender Katsalidis-designed Australia 108 complex (above) in Melbourne through CBRE agent Andrew Leoncelli in 2015.

“It’s a party pad for him, it’s not a home, it will be a social residence,” he said.

“He’ll give it to his friends, he’ll come and gamble at the casino. It’s a toy in many respects for him. It’s something he’ll use for four weeks of the year and lie vacant for the rest.”

Sydney's highest price sale was officially recorded at $18 million last year at 1 Macquarie Street in the so-called Toaster complex.

Opera Residences' prices reportedly won’t be set until the Friday night before the sale, but one-bedroom apartments will start from $1.5 million, twos from $3.5 million and threes from $6.5 million.

The two other sales by CBRE's Tim Rees were at $87,000 per sq m and $82,000 per sq m.

Construction will start in April with completion due in December 2019 of the building being developed by a joint venture of China-based developers Macrolink and Landream.

It has been designed by Tzannes Architects in collaboration with Crone Partners.