Our road map for Macquarie Park: getting growth right

Leaders from across our area met recently for the launch of a landmark new report at our Macquarie Park Summit. Connect MPID’s road map report highlights challenges and opportunities which need careful attention if Macquarie Park is to grow succesfully. Today, we look at “getting growth right”.

Macquarie Park is on the cusp of transformational change. Due to its success, the number of people working in Macquarie Park has grown significantly. This has created a need for supporting infrastructure to “catch up”, according to the Department of Planning.

"Macquarie Park’s success draws on decades of employment-related investment and development. This is a cluster of leading companies, many of which base their Asia–Pacific headquarters in Macquarie Park. People can easily connect to the rest of Greater Sydney via Sydney Metro Northwest services. Macquarie Park is essential to growing Greater Sydney’s capacity as a centre for innovation." NSW Government - Macquarie Park Place Strategy

The Department of Planning’s 2015 strategic employment review and 2021 draft masterplan both agree there are 72,000 people employed in the Park today, but forecast different long term views.

By 2030/2031 the difference between forecasts is equal to 15,530 employees. By 2035/2036 that difference increases to 27,410 employees.

Future infrastructure - from additional bus services to new buildings - will be planned around growth forecasts, which is why it’s important to get them right.

How fast is Macquarie Park growing?

The 2015 forecasts were based on an employee average compound annual growth rate of 3.05%.

While difficult to measure exactly, the Australian Bureau of Statistics found the number of Macquarie Park businesses grew by 3.8% per annum from 2016 to 2020.

Connect MPID is aware of several commercial developments in Macquarie Park either seeking approval or already underway which would provide space for more than 25,000 employees.