Newcastle development 727 HQ celebrates 'topping out' ceremony as build officially soars to city's tallest commercial building

The roughly $107 million project celebrated a major milestone this week with a 'topping out' ceremony, towering over other commercial buildings across the city at 60 metres in height.

It's the latest in a slew of developments transforming the face of Newcastle's west-end, in a precinct designed to be both earthquake-proof and recession-proof, Core Project Group director Courtney Knight said.

"We sat down with the council early on in the piece and came up with a masterplan for a service-based precinct," he said.

"We had this idea that if we came up with a recession-proof strategy on the long-term development of the site we would be able to see the waves of growth and potential recessions fairly seamlessly."

The commercial jaunt is the last piece of the puzzle, alongside the Holiday Inn Express, RSL LifeCare vertical village and childcare centre.

With 11 levels of commercial space, four levels of carparking with more than 200 parks and opportunities for retail on the ground floor, Mr Knight said building the giant hasn't come without its hurdles.

"It has been a real challenge, global supply chain challenges have been really quite intense, a lot of the steel, facade, electrical kiosks and lift structures can't be sourced in Australia - they have to be sourced overseas," he said.

"It's difficult to get products out of a lot of those foreign countries but even more difficult to get products from other continents through the shipping channels into Australia."

He said the locally owned and operated company sources local trades and supplies where possible. COVID-19 had created its own challenges with sickness and labour shortages - but despite it all the project pushed ahead.

At ground-level, the old Army Drill Hall facing King Street built in 1910 as a training facility has been carefully restored - with the potential to become a cafe or communal public space.

It's Newcastle's oldest remaining army depot and later became headquarters for the 35^th Battalion Militia - last occupied by the University of NSW Regiment - an Army Reserve unit.

Expected to officially open early in 2023, Mr Knight said 727 HQ will play an important role in not just the gentrification of the west-end but the revitalisation of Newcastle as whole.

"There has been a shuffling of the deck chairs from the east to the west, and to make that work you do need feet pounding the pavement," he said.

"You need workers in the west-end to make that work, to get the restaurants, support services and the buildings full as well as investment into that space."

Since it started, the project has engaged more than 210 businesses and seen 775 workers on-site, collectively contributing more than 125,000 man hours.

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