In the 34 years David McDowell has been working in Double Bay’s Cosmopolitan Centre, he can recall three distinct periods of trade. The cheery butcher who is an identity around the Bay and has a clientele other retailers can only envy, describes the eras as decades of good, bad and better.
“When I first came in, there was a lot of Hungarians here — I used to sell a lot of veal, veal schnitzel, veal cutlets, liver,” says McDowell with his trademark grin. “Double Bay had a very European feel then, there were delis and cafes, the cinema, [legendary restaurant] George’s, it was a little village, but a very classy village. People would come down to Double Bay with expectations. I arrived in 1986 and that was the first 10 years. The Cosmo Centre had just been revamped and it was great.
“The second 10 years, Double Bay went into decline to where you had places like Jeans West and Max Brenner coming in. Westfield came along, the cinema shut. The Double Bay era was gone. Paddington was gone. Bondi Junction became flavour of the month. We weren’t the flavour of the month any more. We got through it because we have a very good clientele but it wasn’t my best 10 years.
“Then things changed again. MasterChef came along. People became interested in food, celebrity chefs, Donna Hay. People started coming back here, restaurants started opening, such as Matteo and Bibo. Cosmopolitan Centre changed owners recently, and the new owners have done more for it in 12 months than the previous owner did in 30 years. So, yes, I think the future for Double Bay is very bright.”
It is universally acknowledged by anyone with a working familiarity with Double Bay that it is one of the most geographically and economically blessed suburbs in Australia. Bordered on one side by a twinkling harbour that laps twin beaches, and on the other by stately Cooper Park, and offering a rare — for Sydney — flat shopping village interlaced with grand streets that do not have to withstand the surging of through traffic, you would think it would be the most sought-after living and shopping precinct in the state.
But for years, Double Bay has struggled to emerge from a gloom that beset the village from the late-90s, resulting in vacant shops, plunging rental returns and lower real estate prices, and a sense that what was once the glitziest suburb in Sydney would never really regain its glory days. Although there have been recent wins, including the launch of Kiaora Place on New South Head Road, in the past few years, heavy construction work and missed opportunities have tarnished the area’s appeal.
“Double Bay is a most incredible place,” says Eduard Litver, whose Capitel Group bought the Cosmopolitan Centre, long regarded as the beating heart of Double Bay, in 2018. “It’s seven minutes from the city, 20 minutes from the airport, it has the harbour on the doorstep and it has an amazing history.”
A walk down oncefashionable Knox Street reveals the battle scars of a suburb that is starting to show green shoots after being locked for many years in limbo. As village shopping centres reemerge, it too is showing signs of a resurgence as the community and fashion retailers rallly to the neighbourhood.
Litver, for one, is passionate about Double Bay and keen to effect a change, and as part of the Double Bay working party encourages the Council to adopt ambitions plans to overhaul this major part of the Bay. He envisages the once-famous thoroughfare on Knox Street becoming a partly pedestrian boulevard and wants to see the buildings on the north side transform into an architectural talking point and Short Street.
“There is an incredible opportunity here, but there needs to be a long-term, holistic approach by the council, to work with the landowners to transform this area into a worldclass village again,” he says, pointing out modernisation requires council’s active support and for planning controls to be updated.
For Litver, an experienced integrated property developer who redeveloped Bondi’s dilapidated Swiss Ground Hotel into the beautiful PACIFIC Bondi Beach, the Double Bay community’s needs are urgent, with businesses needing transformation in the post- COVID reconstruction period. “We can have one of the world’s great villages here,” he says. “This place is as good as anywhere — it could be Beverley Hills, or a borough of New York, or Switzerland, Italy, or even Queenstown.”
The Cosmopolitan Centre is now undergoing a glamourous refurbishment with the local designer Alex Bentley, also a local resident, to modernise this landmark precinct and recreate a sophisticated venue to cater to the local community. Fashion retailers such as Mecca, Bassike and ScanLan adjoin each other on Knox Street and other fashion retailers are now vying to move in (see our story, following). Knox Street is likely to once again be the heart of Double Bay.
Opposite the Cosmopolitan Centre on Bay Street, Charles Mellick’s Fortis Group is in the final stages of the redevelopment of a large new commercial space that will occupy the corner of Guilfoyle Avenue. Pallas House will be a 2500sq m commercial property fully leased to investment group, Pallas Capital (which also owns Fortis). In December, Fortis will announce the names of three major restaurants that will move into 900sq m of ground-floor space.
Like Litver, Mellick grew up in the area and has fond memories of the neighbourhood in its boom days of the 1970s and 80s, when it was Sydney’s ‘it’ spot, frequented by society figures like Kerry Packer. “I have seen Double Bay transition, particularly over the last couple of years,” says Mellick, who owns several other buildings in the suburb and this month spent about $20 million buying Gaden House on Cooper Street. “There’s a lot happening. I have a saying, ‘Let’s make Double Bay great again!’ And I’m getting 30,000 hats printed with that on it.”
Mellick says the key to Double Bay’s potential lies in its centrality and its geography. “You have Bellevue Hill, Vaucluse, Point Piper and Darling Point. Then you have Double Bay, and the only other flat spot is Rose Bay — and it has traffic.” He says while the area is on the up, it still needs more outdoor life including alfresco dining. “We’re trying to get Guilfoyle Park as an eating area, we’re talking to the Mayor about that, so it can be a bit like Indigo cafe in Transvaal Avenue,” he says.
For her part, Woollahra Mayor Susan Wynne is supportive of modernising the Bay. “Double Bay is our biggest commercial centre in Woollahra,” she says. “And residents who move into the area need to recognise that they are moving into a commercial area. “We especially want to encourage Double Bay to have a healthy nighttime economy. The more activity you have, the safer it is and the better it is, and we want more people down there.” Wynne says the biggest change in Double Bay in recent years is that the big developers are now locals (by contrast, the Cosmopolitan was previously in Singaporean ownership). “A lot of the people who are developing there are passionate about the area and they want to bring it back to life,” she says. “They are finding ways to invest into the community, and that creates jobs. We want this to be a destination where people come and spend money.” For many of those agitating for change in Double Bay, the key to the area’s success will be in the projects the council approves.
Property observer Robert Kantor of real estate tome Boutique Developer says the area has enough high-end developments like the recently finished The Hunter — a complex of five — and 1788 — a $100 million boutique property development of 29 luxury apartments — that are mostly suitable for downsizers. “The best way to rejuvenate an area is to get young families back in,” he says. “It happened with North Bondi and it can happen with Double Bay. It’s really simply a matter of appealing to that demographic with good tenancies and making it easy for them to be there.” Kantor says the success of the Kiaora Centre, a joint venture between Woollahra Council and Woolworths, shows young people want to be in the area. It’s now just a matter of getting them to cross New South Head Road into the old Double Bay township.
Litver agrees. “Cosmopolitan Centre is the heart of the village. We want to bring people back into Double Bay. We have a grand vision for the area and we want to make it a reality.”