Blacktown. New position in arts centre

Blacktown City Council has advertised for an audience development and community officer to join the team at the Blacktown Arts Centre, which aims to develop and showcase the arts in Western Sydney. The salary range is $981.oo to $1098.70 weekly, with a car allowance.

Penrith. New positions at council

Penrith City Council has established two senior positions following a management restructure. It has advertised for a group manager, people and places, and group manager, information & customer relations. The remuneration package is in the range of $145,740 to $167,087 annually, including a vehicle.

North Ryde. Boost in office space

Demand for office space in North Ryde was the second highest in the country over the last six months, continuing its growth as a major national business centre, according to the Property Council of Australia’s latest Office Market Report. In the six months to January, the market in North Ryde took up 58,117square metres of office space, second only to Brisbane’s Near City market in demand for space among Australian office markets. “North Ryde has continued its phenomenal growth. It is now the ninth biggest office market in the country, bigger than Parramatta and St Kilda Road,” said Ken Morrison, executive director the NSW Property Council of Australia.

Region. Call to bring forward construction

Clr Alison McLaren, president of WSROC, has called on the NSW Government to bring forward the construction of Sydney’s South-West Rail Link, which was deferred in last November’s mini-budget. It is vital for the future of Western Sydney that this project is re-instated, and that it proceeds quickly”, she said. Clr McLaren pointed out that both the South-West and North-West projects were not only vital to the future of Western Sydney, but to Sydney as a whole. “The pressing challenge in the south-west is to support residential expansion that is about to take place. The infrastructure imperative in the north-west is to resolve a transport crisis that exists right now, and is getting worse day by day,” she said

Parramatta. Demand for office space

Solid demand for quality office space in Parramatta was not enough to stop office vacancies jumping from 7.3 to 10.1 percent in the six months to January, according to the Property Council of Australia’s latest Office Market Report. However these figures mask healthy demand for A Grade space, suggesting the impact of the financial crisis had yet to bite in Parramatta. “The Parramatta CBD is a tale of two cities: solid demand for quality office space and negative demand for lower grade stock,” said Property Council NSW, executive director, Ken Morrison.

Parramatta. Low-cost office alternative

“With a greater population of white-collar workers in a 15-kilometre radius (of Parramatta) than the Sydney CBD, as well as extremely low comparative rentals, demand for quality office space in Parramatta is only going up,” said Nicholas Hogg, director, of Knight Frank, said in The Sydney Morning Herald. Compared to the Sydney CBD, Parramatta offered extremely affordable quality office accommodation in a highly accessible location. He said large organisations were increasingly seeing the sense in location their workplace in Parramatta, given the proportion of clerical, managerial, sales and professional employees living in close proximity to Parramatta’s CBD.

Region. Status of industrial markets

Outer North West is driving industrial development and over the 2009-2010 period it is expected to account for nearly a third of all new floor space added to the Sydney industrial market, according to CBRE’s latest Industrial MarketView Report. Another big year is expected in 2009 for new supply in Outer South West, following on from the record levels of floor space completed in 2008. The prediction is for 243,000 square metres of space to complete in 2009. New space is becoming difficult to find in the Central West but the stalling of rental growth over the last couple of years suggests that tenants have decided to look for industrial space in other sub-regions.. Outer Central West is the heart of Western Sydney’s industrial market, with Wetherill Park and Smithfield, ranked first and second in terms of industrial floor space in metropolitan Sydney, however, stock in the area is beginning to age.