Parramatta is seeing a surge of investment interest with billions of dollars’ worth of new office towers and residential complexes drawing investors in to the area.

It is soon to be the home of a major Chinese property development company and hundreds of new unit blocks.

The development, called the Promenade is by Starryland Australia, a local division of Fuxing Huiyu.

They’re known for building mega communities in the Chinese city of Wuhan, where thousands of residents live in 50 storey towers.

The Promenade is one of Parramatta’s biggest residential developments yet.

It will span five hectres, have 774 high end apartments in 11 towers up to 12 stories high.

Hao Liu, the director of Starryland Australia, says that’s a normal size for apartment blocks in China.

“Lots of large developments like The Promenade we did in Parramatta, minimum say 500 apartments up to 2000 apartments,” he told SBS. “In China because of the large population we normally develop a large community – a similar project to like what we did in Parramatta.”

Building on China’s mega communities

It’s the first Sydney project for the company – one of the largest property developers in China and known for building mega communitiies in Wuhan.

A further 33 major projects are planned for Parramatta, worth about 8 billion dollars.

It could see Parramatta over take Adelaide and Perth as Australia’s fourth largest CBD.

“Looking forward to the next 10, 20 years, we know this city’s going to be a next chapter for greater Sydney,” Lui told SBS. “From our experience we know it will be a better and a bigger in the future.”

The firm has also spent $18 million securing a prime development site in Melbourne’s Southbank.

Pricing out first home buyers?

There has been some concern Chinese investors are pricing first home buyers out of the market.

Commerical property agent, Andrew Antonas says there’s speculation Asian developers are driving up prices, but argues most developers are playing fair.

“80 per cent of the Chinese developers that are here and developing are professionals and they’re very good at what they do and they’re bringing a lot of smarts to the industry,” he said.

“We’re seeing 20 per cent I’d say of those Chinese developers that are speculators. They’re the ones that I think are distorting the market somewhat.”