Everything a buyer needs to know about Sky Garden in Glen Waverley: Five minutes with Golden Age Group
Sky Garden is the completed Glen Waverley residential complex developed by Golden Age Group.
Spanning three towers designed by the regarded architecture firm Rothelowman, Sky Garden sits above the new and improved $430 million redevelopment of The Glen shopping centre.
The communal showpiece is the aptly named sky garden. Located above the podium levels linking each tower, the sky garden features a bar, kitchen and private dining spaces,, veggie gardens, a kids playground and large lawns with water features.
Urban recently sat down with Golden Age's sales and marketing director Dandan Zhao to discuss the project.
Why did you choose to acquire the residential element of The Glen from Vicinity?
Sky Garden is a landmark and unpreceded feat of a project we are incredibly proud of. At Golden Age, we are always looking for new ways to do things and we saw an opportunity to partner with Vicinity Centres to deliver a residential component to an existing shopping precinct in a way that has never been done before in Australia, making this project the first of its kind.
Developing within air rights was a fairly new phenomenon within Australia when we launched Sky Garden in 2018 but its location ticked all the boxes. For all stakeholders involved, including Vicinity, it was an incredibly ambitious project with a combined value close to $1 billion but it has paid off in spades.
Did you keep the same architecture plans? If not - what was the design brief for Rothelowman? (If so - what did you like about the plans?)
When we bought the air rights site from Vicinity, the development contained three towers (A/B/C). Originally, Towers A & B were conjoined in an elbow shape almost reading as a large L-shaped building.
We briefed Rothelowman to create three distinctive buildings of three different characters based on the five natural elements. This created separation between the buildings so that they architecturally stood on their own with three different glazing colours.
Both the indoor and outdoor common area amenities were also redesigned to suit our vision for Sky Garden and the garden itself was completely overhauled taking on numerous iterations. We also replanned the apartments so that they catered to the size and layout that our target market prefers, taking experience from our past projects including Sky One.
Read more: How Rothelowman designed Sky Garden
What were the key features you wanted to achieve in the development?
It is a unique project as it is the first time an air-rights transfer above a shopping mall has allowed for a development of such scale within Australia - it’s also reflective of a growing trend towards the Asian ‘apartments above mall’ model.
Designed in collaboration with multi-award winning architect Rothelowman, interiors by DKO Architecture, and featuring landscaping by Aspect Studios, Sky Garden originally launched to market with 555 one, two and three-bedroom spacious residences across three towers. The number of residences has since dwindled to 536 apartments due to demand from downsizers seeking larger floor plans, leading to a number of amalgamations.
Residents have access to a 4,000 square metre outdoor podium garden complete with a relaxation zone, entertainment lounges, BBQs, vegetable gardens, a designated children’s play area and outdoor fitness areas.
Other amenities include a luxurious pool, a two-storey fully equipped gym, private dining rooms with BBQ in the terrace which can be booked for private functions, a private cinema, two gaming rooms and a library, alongside more than 240 speciality retail stores and a fresh food market hall situated in The Glen below.
Where have buyers come from, and who is the development appealing to?
The majority of buyers come from local suburbs, particularly the South Eastern suburbs that are within 10 km of the project.
We’ve had buyers who are local and want to be within walking distance to Glen Waverley Secondary College or Glen Waverley Primary, including families and grandparents, as well as downsizers who like the convenience of living atop a world-class shopping centre and don’t want to sacrifice their lifestyle by moving into a small and standalone apartment.
Then we have professionals who either work nearby or work in the city and are attracted to the connectivity of the project - it has been a true assortment of buyers which is expected given the nature of this project, it quite literally caters to all buyer demographics.
In many cases, families and friends have bought together. There are also people who bought for their parents to downsize, or for children as their first home. Many investors purchased with the idea that this could be their future retirement option or holiday home.
Numerous investors have selected Sky Garden over other projects because they believed its location, amenities and quality would guarantee appreciation overtime.