Are you Sirius? Disputes plague iconic block

The plan was simple: sell off Sirius, Sydney’s iconic public housing block, and turn it into a goldmine of luxury apartments with Opera House views.

But it didn’t work out that way.

Despite a “record-setting” sales launch back in 2021 — when refurbished Sirius apartments fetched over $100,000 per square metre — the outlook today is far less impressive.

With 20 of the 76 apartments still unsold and debts piling up, developer JDH Capital headed up by former Macquarie Banker Jean-Dominque Huynh, is verging on financial collapse, according to the Australian Financial Review.

Property developers don’t always mint profits

What was meant to be a harbourside cash cow has become a cautionary tale for Huynh, who is discovering that not all iconic apartment redevelopments can turn a fast buck.

Developers sometimes buy the penthouse themselves to create hype and inflate perceived property values – which is what Huynh did when he ‘purchased’ the Sirius penthouse for $35 million in 2021, as Title Deeds reported.

Perhaps the heart of the Sirius building — which has been an architecture darling revered for its Brutalist style, much like the Reader’s Digest building and Sydney Police Centre — is what refuses to sell out?

The building has a long history of protest, public housing and people power — union Green bans tried to save it, but failed. Reddit users have a lot to say on the topic.

The former Coalition government handed over the site to Huynh and his mates for $150 million in 2019, and Flat Chat did a podcast on the development a few years later.

In 2025, former Macquarie Banker Huynh now has some of Asia’s wealthiest families, conglomerates and lenders bashing down his nicely refurbished front door – proof that not everything iconic is easily flipped for profit.

There’s also been several court dramas over land tax bills, which has reduced the cash paid back to the state for selling off its own asset.

Dollars and sense of Sirius

COVID-19 building cost increases and delays are being blamed for Sirius’s financial woes, but perhaps there’s also  some bad karma coming back to haunt the developers of what was previously revered as public housing that put people first?

The AFR reports that builder Richard Crookes Construction is still waiting to be paid, non-bank lenders have reportedly taken control of seven of the twenty unsold Sirius apartments and other JDH property developments in the east are being paused or eyed off by receivers.

Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore said in this 2017 article for Domain that the sale of the state significant development was a shameful prioritisation of property profits over social responsibility.  

In 2021, Flat Chat wrote more about the developer profiting to the tune of $435 million after acquiring the site for $150 million.

Vulnerable tenants like Save Our Sirius campaigner Myra Demetriou, who was blind and aged 93, had to find a new place to live after being forced out of Sirius in 2018.

These days, Title Deeds reports mining bosses, developers and coal founders own strata lots in the Sirius building – though many are likely to be investors who rent out their strata lot.

So while Sirius appears to have wealthy strata lot owners, its developers were busy challenging the NSW Valuer General’s land tax rulings to make sure the state earns as little as possible (while they pay as little land tax on their property investments as possible).

It remains to be seen whether the Sirius developer’s financial position will be critical to avoid owners or investors being stuck with any defects on common property due to non-payment of the builder.