Cooks Cove
Cooks Cove is a 100-hectare site, located in the suburb of Arncliffe, immediately to the west of the Cooks River and Sydney Airport and 10 kilometres south of the Sydney Central Business District. The site is bounded by the Cooks River and Muddy Creek to the east, Marsh Street to the northwest, West Botany Street to the west and Bestic Street to the south.
In September 2001, Cooks Cove Development Corporation (CCDC) appointed Sydney Harbour Foreshore Authority as its agent to manage the project to build a technology park at the site.
The Cooks Cove site comprises a number of land parcels owned by various state and local government agencies and Kogarah Golf Club. CCDC has worked with the landowners to value the land and agree on terms to enable all holdings to be consolidated.
Following negotiations, all landowners agreed to compulsory acquisition arrangements and the various parcels of land at Cooks Cove can now be consolidated.
Once the acquisition process is complete, the whole site will be owned by CCDC on behalf of the NSW Government. This arrangement will continue until the trade and technology zone is developed.
In 2006, Kogarah Golf Club appointed John Boyd Properties, through its subsidiary Boyd Cook Cove Pty Ltd, to act as developer and a project delivery agreement was entered into with the Cooks Cove Development Corporation.
In early 2008, a new company, Cook Cove Pty Ltd, was formed as a joint venture between Westpac Funds Management and John Boyd Properties. This company will be responsible for delivering the community works which will ultimately allow for the trade and technology zone to be developed. The company plans to create around 270,000 square metres of office buildings, a hotel, retailing and 4,500 car spaces.
In the first stage, around $100 million will be spent improving part of the land, relocating Kogarah Golf Club and moving a host of smaller sporting clubs. The foreshore zone will then be developed.
Site remediation and relocation works were undertaken in 2008 and 2009.
Like many other projects of its size and complexity, the Cooks Cove project has been affected by the global financial crisis. The project developer, Cook Cove Pty Ltd, placed itself into voluntary liquidation in April 2009.
Sydney Harbour Foreshore Authority, acting as the agent for CCDC, is working with the administrators and all other stakeholders to develop a timetable for the continuation and completion of the project.
