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But 10 years on, owners inside Sydney’s famed green skyscraper face a harsh reality. Frank Chung @franks_chung November 1, 2025 - 5:44AM Share via Email Share on Facebook Share on Whatsapp Copied URL to clipboard Egypt unveils new billion-dollar museum to lure in more tourists After more than 20 years of construction, the Grand Egyptian Museum will finally open this weekend, promising more than 50,000... A “confronting” sight on one of Sydney’s most busy streets has experts asking a key question about foliage-covered “green” buildings — “does it suck or does it spit?” Ten years ago, Central Park was hailed as one of the Sydney CBD’s most innovative new environmentally friendly skyscrapers, paving the way for sustainable high-density living with its distinctive plant-covered exterior. But owners in the $2 billion, five-building Frasers Property development in Chippendale — once crowned the world’s best tall building — have been seeing anything but green in the years since, forced to fork out thousands of dollars in special levies to fix a raft of defects. From complaints about illegal prostitution to the discovery of flammable cladding, things fell apart — literally — in 2023 when one of the signature planter boxes fell from the exterior onto the pavement below. Central Park in Chippendale. Picture: news.com.au The owners corporation blamed faulty bolts installed by the builder, with at least one having completely broken off from the screw. NSW’s powerful Building Commission leapt into action, issuing Frasers an emergency rectification order for One Central Park in December 2023 to address the serious defect, before issuing an updated building work rectification order (BWRO) on January 16, 2024 — one day before the building turned 10 years old. Under NSW law, the developer is responsible for serious defects in buildings less than 10 years old. Copied URL to clipboard Plan to build world's first 'Sky Stadium' Saudi Arabia has announced plans to build the world’s first ‘sky stadium’. “A batch of the Type 2 Stainless Steel T-Bolts randomly distributed across the building to secure planter boxes in the vertical gardens are defective with some fracturing and failing,” the order read. “The ability of the planter boxes to drain both stormwater rainfall catchment and subsurface water flows effectively to the stormwater drainage system is defective.” Hoarding was erected over the busy footpath around the mixed-use building, which houses a Woolworths and sits opposite the UTS campus, to protect pedestrians from falling planter boxes or other debris. Rectification works were ordered after a planter box fell onto the pavement in 2023. Picture: news.com.au A rope support system was installed to secure each individual planter box on the building as a temporary safety measure. This system is regularly inspected and maintained at Fraser’s expense under a deed poll arrangement. Tim Allerton, a crisis communications publicist representing the owners, confirmed the rectification works were “well underway” and it would be “hopefully a year or two before it’s all completed”. The planter boxes are being handled by Frasers while the cladding work is being conducted by Buildcorp. Mr Allerton, who has represented the likes of neurosurgeon Charlie Teo and was brought on by the owners in 2023 to minimise the impact of news coverage on apartment prices, was unable to say how much the workers were costing. “Building Commission NSW is working with the developer of the One Central Park site to have serious defects identified at the building rectified,” a spokesman said. “Recent works at the One Central Park site have been undertaken to prioritise the safety of people within the vicinity of the facade of the building of concern.” Hoarding has been erected to protect pedestrians. Picture: news.com.au Sustainable building experts say One Central Park’s woes offer a valuable lesson to other developers. “That particular building was very, very new in the sense of the technologies and so on which were applied to it, so the more complex the building the more likelihood of things going awry,” said Associate Professor Paul Osmond from the UNSW’s School of Built Environment. “From an education perspective [Central Park] has actually been quite inspirational in that it has gotten people thinking about how tall buildings can be green.” Prof Osmond said the problem was “nobody has really spent enough time having a look at the life cycle of that green infrastructure”. “To quote the late, great Bill Mollison, one of the founders of permaculture, ‘Does it suck or does it spit?’” he said. “Does this particular bit of green infrastructure require more input of energy, water, labour, dollars than it spits out in terms of benefits to the environment? I don’t think that side of it is really looked at enough with our green buildings. “Just taking carbon emissions, if the particular form of greening, whether it’s green facades or whatever, if that is actually going to create more carbon emissions than a building without that particular intervention then you’ve got to ask the question, how sustainable is this? “It’s not just aesthetics or wow, doesn’t this look great, but how it’s going to be in another 10, 20 years, what’s its life cycle and how much maintenance and inputs in terms of dollars and everything else are going to be required to keep it going?” Crisis PR specialist Tim Allerton is representing the owners. Picture: Justin Lloyd Prof Osmond is currently overseeing a PhD research project investigating the long-term financial performance of green buildings “looking at finance, bankability, investability”. “Looking at the dollar side of this as a surrogate for its performance from a sustainability perspective, [because] ultimately that’s going to be the big driver for green buildings,” he said. Sustainability had to be thought of in terms of the “triple bottom line”, according to Prof Osmond. “There’s the ecological or environmental, the social — the satisfaction and delight of the people who live there — and of course the financial,” he said. “We all know the problems with developers and owners corporations being saddled with problems with all kinds of different buildings being thrown up, the majority of them being the exact opposite of green — I would call some of these buildings the vertical slums of the future.” Research from Europe and Asia has found green facades and “living wall” systems typically result in higher ongoing maintenance costs for owners, potentially offset by savings on energy and indirectly through higher property values or rental premiums. A 2013 study by the University of Genoa in Italy conducted a cost-benefit analysis of various forms of vertical greening systems. Despite the hiccup, experts say green buildings are a net positive. Picture: news.com.au The researchers found that green building features added up to 5 per cent to a property’s value, could increase rental income by up to 4.5 per cent and saved owners up to 20 per cent in energy for airconditioning. Overall, the cost-benefit analysis ranged from 10 per cent higher in the worst-case scenario and 10 per cent lower in the best case. However, the more complex the system, the less economically sustainable. An indirect green facade combined with planter boxes was found to be just barely economically sustainable “only for the best scenario due to its installation and maintenance costs”, the study found. The number of years taken for owners to break even on green walls ranged from 16 years for the most economical, direct “climbing plant” style facades, to more than 50 years for the more complex styles — the “living wall” or the indirect green facade combined with planter boxes. Sara Wilkinson, Professor of Sustainable Property at UTS, said One Central Park was an “unfortunate” and “quite an extreme case”. “[The defects are] obviously sending the costs of their maintenance up, and then it doesn’t look as it used to so they’re probably finding if they put their apartment on the market now it’s not getting the attraction it did previously,” she said. “This is the risk that owners take with very visible green infrastructure — when it does fail, if it’s not properly maintained, if there’s a drought, it’s very, very visible.” Prof Wilkinson noted that “we have lots of defects in buildings that are there but we don’t see them so we don’t think about them”. “Obviously all that purple strapping on the side of the building is very confronting,” she said. She stressed that overall “green walls and green roofs are a really good idea”. More Coverage How to lock in $100k savings on an apartment Nicholas Finch High-rise house of happy endings FRANK CHUNG They help to reduce the urban heat effect, improve air quality and offer habitat for biodiversity, among other benefits. “They do have a lot of pluses, so it’s definitely a good idea — but so is maintenance,” she said. frank.chung@news.com.au Read related topics:Sydney Join the conversation (0 Comments) Add your comment to this story To join the conversation, please log in. Don't have an account? Join the conversation, you are commenting as More related stories Real Estate Shock price for tiny Ben Buckler flat with no parking A tiny apartment with no parking on North Bondi’s Ben Buckler has sold for an incredible price. Real Estate Massive backflip on nude model’s $8m deal Nude model Dina Broadhurst scored an $8m coup with the long-awaited sale of her luxury home but the new owners have decided the chic pad isn’t all that, after all. Brisbane & QLD First homebuyer reveals true cost of unit purchase While others turn to credit cards to survive the mortgage crunch, this first homebuyer is taking a radically different approach. Registration In The Know Quiz Newsletters Competitions Welcome to news.com.au Code of Conduct Help and Support General Feedback Advertise with us Standards of Practice Licensing & Reprints Our News Network The Daily Telegraph The Courier Mail Our Partners realestate.com.au CODE Sports A NOTE ABOUT RELEVANT ADVERTISING: We collect information about the content (including ads) you use across this site and use it to make both advertising and content more relevant to you on our network and other sites. Find out more about our policy and your choices, including how to opt-out.Sometimes our articles will try to help you find the right product at the right price. We may receive payment from third parties for publishing this content or when you make a purchase through the links on our sites. 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