AFIAA proposes 24 extra storeys on Pyrmont office in $333m plan

A state significant development proposal would add 24 storeys and 170 to 220 homes to an office building at 60 Union Street, Pyrmont. It is at Response to Submissions. The Urban Developer reports the developer, AFIAA, puts the plan at $333 million. That figure is not on the planning record. For Pyrmont owners, it tests whether the state will back an office-top tower with a rezoning attached.

Why it matters

The proposal would convert a working commercial building into a mixed-use site, which is the harder end of the inner-city housing pipeline. The existing block is an eight-storey office building, according to The Urban Developer.

The record is SSD-96974214 on the NSW Planning Portal. It describes alterations and additions to the existing commercial building, with a concurrent rezoning to MU1 Mixed Use and increased height and floor space ratio. The council area is City of Sydney.

It is a proposal only. Nothing has been approved.

The numbers

The record gives the following. The listing says “additional 24 storeys”. It describes a change of use to retail and residential, with 170 to 220 dwellings, including 17% affordable housing. It lists no capital investment value and does not name the applicant.

The Urban Developer, in an article dated 28 September 2026, supplies more. It describes AFIAA as a developer and a vehicle of Swiss pension fund Avadis. It reports a 34-storey residential tower made up of 178 market units and 41 affordable units, a total of 219 homes, and says the plan would require demolishing the west wing of the existing building. The article puts the plan at $333 million. That is the developer’s figure as reported, not a figure we have read on the record.

The two sources do not line up exactly. The record speaks of 24 additional storeys and a range of 170 to 220 dwellings, while the press report gives a 34-storey outcome and a fixed 219 homes. Eight existing storeys plus 24 would be 32, and submitters on the portal cite totals of 32, 33 and 34 storeys. We have not been able to reconcile the total height from the record. The 41 affordable units would be about 19% of 219, against the 17% on the listing, so the affordable share may have shifted between documents.

We have not read a gross floor area, an architect, or the planning panel stage dates for this project.

What’s next

The listing shows the project at Response to Submissions. That means the applicant is answering the issues raised by the public and agencies during exhibition. The next steps are a Department of Planning assessment and a determination, whose timing the record does not give.

The rezoning running alongside the application is the point to watch. A change to MU1 with extra height and floor space is the mechanism that makes the tower possible, and it will draw scrutiny from City of Sydney and from neighbours in Pyrmont.

For developers and builders, the thing to track is whether the dwelling count and affordable share settle at the upper or lower end of the range. See the wider pipeline on the Sydney hub.

Developers with a stake in the peninsula can follow the Response to Submissions documents on the portal listing.