NGNU partnered with Icon to deliver a new hotel development at 499 Kent Street in Sydney’s CBD. Our role included project management, planning advice, and value engineering to ensure the project balanced design ambition with commercial outcomes.
We supported the client through approvals and delivery planning, ensuring the project aligned with heritage sensitivities while creating a commercially attractive 4–5 star hotel offering.
The project involved transforming a site with a retained heritage façade into a modern 230-room hotel. This required complex negotiation with planning authorities to ensure compliance while addressing the expectations of building owners, tenants, and heritage stakeholders. Integrating new building services, circulation spaces, and structural systems into a constrained CBD footprint further increased the complexity. In addition, the design needed to meet modern fire, safety, and access requirements while preserving the character of the heritage fabric. These conditions demanded rigorous planning, sequencing, and stakeholder consultation to keep approvals and delivery on track.
NGNU provided leadership in navigating the planning and approvals process, aligning the client team, design consultants, and external stakeholders around a common outcome. Through detailed value management, we refined design solutions to improve buildability and reduce cost without compromising the architectural vision or guest experience. Structural redesign and services coordination ensured the majority of interventions were hidden, protecting the prominence of the heritage façade. By combining design management with commercial oversight, NGNU enabled Icon to progress the project as a viable and high-quality CBD hotel development that met both regulatory and stakeholder expectations.
