The battle for the best rooftop bar, the shiniest new office with upmarket amenities and luxury hotel rooms is heating up amid the $100 billion building boom across Sydney’s city, that ranges from infrastructure projects to commercial, residential and development sites.

It has underpinned the latest wave of demand for the next three new towers that are set to hit the already busy Sydney city skyline.

Despite the global pandemic that caused delays for many projects, the new buildings are now opening at a rapid rate - including the Salesforce Tower by Lendlease, the Quay Quarter Tower and the $3.1 billion Waldorf Astoria Hotel and apartment complex - and are now being followed by another wave of construction.

The latest is by developer Holdmark which has lodged a State Significant Development Application for a “sculptural” 59-storey hotel and commercial tower at 4-6 Bligh Street, in the heart of Sydney’s CBD. It has been designed by global architecture studio Woods Bagot with an estimated end value of $700 million.

Plans encompass a 200-room luxury hotel crowned by a rooftop bar 200 metres above the site with eight levels of premium office space, meeting and event rooms, retail, restaurants, and bars.

Holdmark bought the Bligh House property in July 2022 for $210 million and Woods Bagot’s design won a City of Sydney design excellence competition for the site. The current 17-storey office building is opposite one of the two pending Sydney Metro Hunter Street Station entrances.

The group’s chief operating officer, Kevin Nassif, said the proposed development, which was first flagged in November 2022, is part of a diversification strategy for Holdmark, which started with residential projects in western Sydney 30 years ago but is increasingly moving into commercial, retail and hotel developments, including InterContinental Parramatta.

“We bought the [Bligh House] asset purely on a commercial basis because we love the location, it has great development potential, and is 100 per cent occupied, which indicates that quality well-located buildings will stand the test of COVID and the test of time,” Nassif said.

Nassif sees a big future for tourism in Sydney’s CBD, which is benefitting from massive state government infrastructure investment and a focus on regenerating the city’s night-time economy.