BUILDING IN SYDNEY.

Auckland Star, Volume LV, Issue 115, 16 May 1924, Page 9

BUILDING IN SYDNEY.

Sydney ie changing in appearance - rapidly, more especially in the commercial centre. A boom is in progress, which includes the. construction of many new buildings and the remodelling of so many others that many street fronts will be unrecognisable to casual visitors. During 1922 153 new rmilding3 were erected at a cost of £1,592,684. For the 12 months ended June 30, 1923, 17» new buildings, worth £1,624,486, wore built. That record was easily eclipsed for tlie year ended December 20, 1923, with approximately 280 buildings at a cost of more than one and three-quar-ters of a million pounds. Apart from commercial and other buildings in the city proper ranging in individual cost from £125,000 to £450,. 000. additions to the University buildings on the outskirts of the city will

involve an expenditure of £136,000, and the Royal Agricultural Society is spend-,| ing £132,000 on the erection of n grandstand and industrial hall. The expansion of Sydney sun-urban areas during the past year has heen phenomenal. New residential areas have been laid out in every direction. In the last boom year, ended .Tune, 1014, records show that nearly 10,000 buildings were erected within the metropolitan area at a cost of £6,92!),-----904. The activities for 1923 arc stated to exceed £11,000,000. In 1914 the average expenditure on each new residential building was j £608. Late records show that the I cost has risen to £1030. That figure is considered excessive by many experts, some of whom are. inclined to attribute the high cost to the operation of combines controlling material and the action j of certain builders controlling construe- j tion costs.