Igal Leis:
I bought a little house in North Bondi and I was renovating it. And there was an old guy walking his dog every morning. And one morning he called me down and he said, “Come down. I’ve got an opportunity for you.” So, I came down. And then he said, “Look, I’ve got a property, an old block of four units in Bondi and Penkivil Street. And you should have a look at it. I want to sell it. And adjoining to that, there’s a big house. And if you buy mine and you convince the guy next door to sell as well, you’re going to have a good development site. It looks like you’re a builder.” And I said, “Okay.” I went and had a look. And indeed it was an old block of four units on a big block of land on Penkivil Street. The next door was a big house and I did some numbers. It kind of made sense, but back then I didn’t have enough money to do it all on my own. So, I called him.

Elia Leis:
I had plenty of money.

Igal Leis:
He had plenty of money.

Elia Leis:
No, not. Not.

Igal Leis:
I called him and I said, “Listen, there’s an opportunity. Come and have a look. I can’t do it on my own, but maybe together we can do something.” And he came, had a look. We ended up buying the block of four. And then, we approached the guy next door who was extremely painful and took us many, many months and many, many-

Elia Leis:
Oh, took us more than a year. What do you mean many months?

Igal Leis:
Many coffees at this dodgy cafe on Bondi Road. But eventually we got him over the line and that was our first site.

Anthony Denman:
Fantastic. What year was that?

Igal Leis:
Around 2000.

Anthony Denman:
26 years ago. Wow.

Igal Leis:
26 years ago. Yeah. I was the first one. There have been many others since then.

Anthony Denman:
So, in my experience, the best partnerships generally are where you don’t get in each other’s way too much, right? So, is it fair to say your numbers and your construction?

Elia Leis:
No, we overlap. We overlap. Yes, it is, but we overlap and we bounce things off each other, which is always helpful as well. You got to know what wavelength each other is on. But yeah, it’s not either or, you do feasibilities, you create ideas, thoughts, and it overlaps.

Anthony Denman:
Because you’re both very creative thinkers.

Igal Leis:
There’s a lot of different phases to the development process. My focus is more on the construction, and Elia’s focus is more on the legal and accounting, but there is always back and forth. We all know what the other one is doing. And-

Elia Leis:
There’s planning. There’s planning overlap. There’s approvals, there’s design, there’s choosing of finishes, colors, exterior looks of facades, like the Centennial Collection especially. It was a joint effort from when Adam Haddow presented his initial schemes, which went to a design competition and he won. It was then refined to create those beautiful curved balconies that has been a feature that people love. It was initially more rectilinear and those balconies evolved later on. And it was kind of a bit of an interaction between myself and Igal and showing Adam what we really want to achieve there, which he eventually created a beautiful building.

Anthony Denman:
So, I do want to get into obviously this project before we do. So the first one at Penkivil Street, then how many projects have you done together since then up until this point? Up until-

Igal Leis:
All of them.

Anthony Denman:
Yeah. How many?

Igal Leis:
Probably 20, 25 projects.

Anthony Denman:
All in the Eastern Suburbs?

Igal Leis:
Yeah.

Elia Leis:
All in Eastern Suburbs.

Igal Leis:
All of them. We’ve been lucky to be able to find good sites in the Eastern Suburbs within our area. And we’re very lucky because we live here, the kids go to school here. We went to school here. We know the area very well. And we’re very lucky to be able to work here for so many years and to be able to find those beautiful sites over the years.

Elia Leis:
Yeah. So before that, my previous life was being an accountant, working at Pricewaterhouse. But, when I left, because I’m not a builder, I got into property I think before Igal, basically in acquisition, acquiring land sites, putting DAs together, getting them approved and on selling them because I didn’t know how to build. So, it was a natural progression. While I was doing that, obviously out of uni, he was learning how to build. I think you worked for Meriton at one stage and-

Igal Leis:
Yeah, I worked for a few different builders.

Elia Leis:
A few different builders.

Igal Leis:
But, very quickly I realized that I wanted to build my own stuff without having to work for anyone else.

Elia Leis:
Yeah. Igal had done a smaller development of, I think it was three or four townhouses while I was learning the property industry at the time. And it kind of overlapped and fell into place in 2000, which is the story that Igal mentioned.

Anthony Denman:
Why only the Eastern Suburbs? Have you ever, or are you thinking about developing outside of the Eastern Suburbs?

Igal Leis:
We have looked at many projects over the years outside of the Eastern Suburbs, but somehow, as I said, we were lucky to develop a bit of a network of, I suppose, real estate agents and contacts in the area that has allowed us over the years to put sites together in the East. And, I guess, the East is probably the holy grail of suburbs. In Sydney, every developer in Sydney wants to end up developing in the East because property is most valuable in the East, property appreciates the most in the East. It retains its value. It’s a pretty safe and luxurious area to build in. So, as long as you can find sites here, why would you go anywhere else?

Elia Leis:
I think the East has a safety net, which Igal touched on. You know that you can always rent your property, you can always sell your property for a decent value. It’s had traditionally phenomenal growth and it continues to have phenomenal growth. But, I think, we’re both very conservative guys, even though we’re developers. We like to sleep at night and make sure that we’ve done everything properly. And we’re in an area that you can always get growth and sell property or rent property. And, I think, the banks like it as well from our experience in the last 25 years. So, we feel comfortable here. We’ve learned the area well. We live in the area. Our kids and families have grown up in the area. We’ve been schooled as well and grown up in the area, so we’re very comfortable in this location. So, as long as we can find sites here, there’s no reason for us to go elsewhere.

Anthony Denman:
How many projects have you done in Bondi Junction especially?

Elia Leis:
Bondi Junction, Forum was number one. Encore was number two. Bondi Central was number three. And now we’ve got Centennial and Signature, that’s five.

Anthony Denman:
In what year did you do your first project in Bondi Junction?

Igal Leis:
We bought the first little terrace on Oxford Street, I think it was 2007. Again, we bought it because there was an opportunity, it was for sale, it was not too expensive. And it was part of a role of about, I think there were 13 terraces. And we bought somewhere in the middle there. And then, somehow it started falling into place. The next door came on and we ended up buying that. And then another one and another one. And over the space of two, three years, we ended up buying about 10 of them, which became a pretty big site. And there was also a planning review that Waverley Council was undertaking at that time, 2010, I think. And we were quite involved in trying to get the zoning right for that site and for the area, which was beneficial as well. And we ended up… That was the first one that we built on this one strip that we’ve been working on since 2007.
20 years we’ve been on this street.

Elia Leis:
Yeah. We ended up amalgamating like a monopoly board, amalgamating 10 properties side by side. The last three held out, which we ended up buying after we completed this first one. And we called it a bit of an afterthought, we called it Encore. So, we developed the 10 properties first, which was 126 units. That’s The Forum. And then once that was finished, we developed another 44 units next door, which was the other three that eventually ended up selling. After many years, we called that Encore.

Anthony Denman:
And how did you acquire this site, Centennial Collection?

Igal Leis:
Our selling agent Marcello Bo, who’s still selling for us. He many years later, he knew the guy that owned the property right at the end of the street. There was a-

Elia Leis:
There were four terraces.

Igal Leis:
There were four terraces that were owned by one guy who ran it as a bit of a boarding house, or backpackers, or something. And then Marcello knew the guy and the guy asked Marcello to find him a buyer. So, he introduced us. We had a look at it. We thought that’s a great spot on the cusp of Bondi Junction and Woollahra in Centennial Park. We thought if you build a tower here, you’re going to capture amazing views of Sydney. So, we had a good look at it. And then, there was a car yard next door that we asked Marcello to approach and he was also interested in selling. So, we had acquired both of those for a site. And then, there was another block of six apartments at the back of that on Nelson Street, which also came on board and we ended up acquiring that. And we amalgamated a pretty big site at pretty much the best spot I reckon in the Eastern Suburbs.

Anthony Denman:
Yeah. I mean, there’s a strong argument for that. There’s no doubt about it, especially when you look at those views.

Igal Leis:
That’s right.

Anthony Denman:
And so, design competition, is that the first time-

Igal Leis:
Well, that was the start of the journey of Centennial because that was 2012 or ’13 when we first bought it. And-

Elia Leis:
Yeah. So, there were no guarantees. The first four we bought was not a site. It was just here’s a single owner, four terraces. We kind of saw the future. We had a vision that this would be potentially amalgamated and would become probably the highest and best location in Bondi Junction. And we thought that if the car yard came on board, then that would start our development process. But we had to go through an upzoning because it wasn’t feasible at the zoning that it was currently. And we though opposite the park, iconic entry to Syd Einfeld Drive. It was the gateway to Bondi Junction. So, we thought that we had a good planning argument to uplift it and we presented it to council to do a major local study. Council at the time agreed, and that started the process, which lasted about seven years until it was fully approved and we could start building.

Anthony Denman:
Crazy.

Elia Leis:
It was a bit of a rollercoaster ride, but it came to fruition and I think it came to fruition very nicely. It’s a beautiful building.

Anthony Denman:
Design competition. Tell me about the design.

Igal Leis:
So part of the-

Anthony Denman:
Is that the first time you’ve done a design?

Elia Leis:
It’s the first time it’s ever been done in Waverley Council.

Igal Leis:
The first time that we have done it as well. As part of the upzoning process through council and subsequently through the Department of Planning, because we were asking to change the height limit from, I think it was 15 to whatever it ended up being, they said that they wanted to see a design competition. So, both the government architects office and Waverley Council requested a design competition, and we had to engage and pay for three reputable architectural firms who they had to approve.

Anthony Denman:
Who were they?

Igal Leis:
They were SJB who ultimately won. The other one was Tonkin Zulaikha Greer.

Anthony Denman:
Wow.

Igal Leis:
And the third one was Bates Smart.

Anthony Denman:
Wow. Those are three of the most reputable architects in the world.

Igal Leis:
Yeah. They were pretty top-notch firms. And they interviewed us for a brief. We gave everyone the same brief and it was all written down. And they all went back for three months and worked on it, and then they came and presented to us. Sorry, they didn’t present to us. We had to go to a meeting, a joint meeting with us, council and the government architects people.

Elia Leis:
So, Waverley had to elect a representative for council. The government architect was present. And we also had to select a representative so that it would be an independent competition and it would be all fair to all the architects.

Igal Leis:
All the competitors, yeah.

Elia Leis:
And then there was a final presentation and-

Igal Leis:
Well, they all present. All three architects came in and presented. I think they had half an hour or so, 40 minutes to present, which is not a long time after working for three months, but they all presented very well. And then, they had to leave the room and we all had to sit there and they gave us a score sheet, and we had to give them a score for every aspect of their presentation. There was like 20 aspects. And-

Anthony Denman:
What was the most heavily weighted one, do you remember? Or do you remember why SJB won?

Igal Leis:
I think it was a very close race between SJB and Tonkin Zulaikha. Bates Smart did not tick the boxes for us or not even for council for some reason on that particular one. And then it was a very close race between the two SJB and Tonkin Zulaikha. And by a very small margin that SJB wanted.

Elia Leis:
I think they were heavily weighted at the time the SEP 65 came in and they were very heavily weighted on amenity, on solar access, on unit layout, unit size, all the livability aspects of the internal of the unit.

Igal Leis:
They loved the balconies, the wraparound balconies I think is what ultimately sold it for SJB, I think, because in a fairly busy location, Adam and his team managed to not only create a good acoustic outcome for the building, but by introducing those wraparound balconies, it was like an additional buffer zone right around the unit. Usually you’ll have one little balcony, but he actually created that another 2 1/2, three meters buffer zone right around each apartment, which again offers that protection from the elements for each apartment.

Anthony Denman:
At what point did you realize just how special those views were? Did you do an initial kind of drone flight and how did that all come to fruition?

Igal Leis:
When we were building The Forum many years earlier, that building went up to 14 stories. So, we could already see the views that you can get from this ridge or this hill of Bondi Junction. So, we had an idea that the views even closer to the city are going to be sensational. And being across the road from Woollahra mostly built to four levels, I think, and it’s never really to be built out. So we knew that it was going to be just uninterrupted all the way to the city and to the harbor. Everyone always talks about the harbor views, but what we’ve learned is that the views towards the west, towards the city, is really the most beautiful direction for this area.

Elia Leis:
We did originally some drone shots as well, and we’ve had subsequent drones up there. But, it really does not do it justice because once you’re up there, it is better than any pictures that we’ve produced throughout our whole marketing campaign. Physically seeing it is quite special.

Igal Leis:
Not just seeing. When you’re up there-

Elia Leis:
When you’re up there.

Igal Leis:
… you feel it because somehow when a person looks out, you can capture pretty much 180 degrees around you, whereas a picture doesn’t really give you that perspective, and it really feels very good up there.

Anthony Denman:
The naked eye really is… It’s-

Igal Leis:
It’s different. You can’t capture it with a camera.

Anthony Denman:
Yeah. It is. It is. And we always… We try and capture through our communication, we try and capture as best we can what it feels like to look at something from the naked eye. I saw those sunrise shots come back. It’s amazing. You’d see the sun rising off the ocean and bouncing off the water.

Elia Leis:
It’s more amazing when you’re actually standing up on those levels, because like you said, quite rightly, the eye sees panoramic and with a drone or a picture, you get snapshots of bits and pieces. But, actually standing up there, it kind of encompasses all of you all the way around 360 degrees from the North Shore all the way to Centennial Park and Botany Bay. It’s quite phenomenal.

Anthony Denman:
Do you go down the beach much?

Elia Leis:
Yeah.

Anthony Denman:
Yeah? What time of the day do you go down there?

Elia Leis:
Afternoon.

Anthony Denman:
What time do you go down there?

Igal Leis:
Well, I was there this morning at probably 6:00 AM, 6:30 the sun came up.

Anthony Denman:
Yeah. What is it about living on the beach, seeing the sunrise? Does that empower you to want to get out of the house and enjoy that environment?

Igal Leis:
What I like the most about Bondi is the energy of the place. To me, that’s the best. The scenery I’ve been looking at for the last 40 years, and I’m used to it and it’s beautiful, breathtaking. Every, every morning you enjoy it again. But the energy, you feel the energy of the place. Bondi has a certain energy that most people can only discover once they come to Bondi.

Anthony Denman:
And so, what does that look like for you at 6:30 in the morning?

Igal Leis:
It looks and feels like a very healthy, happy and energetic place.

Anthony Denman:
So, what do you do? Do you swim or just go for walks along the beach?

Igal Leis:
I go for a walk. I go for a run. I look at the beautiful view. I always bump into people that I know and have a chat always. Sometimes it interrupts the run, but you have to do it. It’s just a happy time. That’s all I can think of.

Anthony Denman:
It just makes you sort of feel energized.

Igal Leis:
Yeah, you feel good. It’s a good way to start the day. Not start the day, you can do it at any time of the day. It makes you feel good. Yeah.

Anthony Denman:
Do you guys have boats?

Igal Leis:
I don’t.

Elia Leis:
I have a small boat.

Anthony Denman:
Yeah.

Elia Leis:
It’s actually quite nice being out on the harbor. Similar to Bondi, the energy and the vibe from the harbor with the boats going by, it’s quite a nice environment to live in.

Anthony Denman:
So, looking out at beautiful still day, blue water, does seeing that kind of remind you of those moments and again, empower you to go out onto the harbor and spend some time on the boat?

Elia Leis:
It just gives you a sense of the fact that you’re alive. It’s not just four walls. And I suppose this is what we try to bring to people with the Centennial Collection is that the views are so phenomenal. You feel like you’re actually living not just within four walls, but you’re living within a vibrant lifestyle, overlooking Centennial Park, overlooking the Harbor Bridge, the Opera House, and you walk out and you go to Westfields or go to the mall and go to the restaurant and do whatever you need to do.

Anthony Denman:
What about harbor-side dining? Do you guys get down to Woolloomooloo Wharf or Watson’s Bay or anywhere like that to enjoy?

Elia Leis:
We don’t do a lot of business lunching, but we did at one stage at Woolloomooloo Wharf.

Igal Leis:
Yeah, we had many, many lunches and dinners at Woolloomooloo Wharf over the years. Not so much in recent time. We’ve been too busy delivering Centennial Collection and working a lot. But yeah, we-

Anthony Denman:
What about Chiswick?

Igal Leis:
Yeah, Chiswick is amazing. I mean, it’s been there… It’s an institution, been there for many years already. When we have business meetings, we actually quite often go to Centennial Hotel-

Elia Leis:
Centennial.

Igal Leis:
… and that restaurant’s been a standout restaurant for many, many years. Really good, really good environment, very good food.

Elia Leis:
That’s our go-to business lunch. It’s very convenient.

Igal Leis:
Chiswick for us is more of a family type restaurant. We go there on weekends to celebrate family occasions.

Anthony Denman:
Centennial really is an institution, isn’t it?

Elia Leis:
It is-

Anthony Denman:
It’s been around for so long.

Igal Leis:
Yeah.

Elia Leis:
It’s iconic. And it’s close to our office, which is in Bondi Junction, so it’s convenient to walk up and have lunch at Centennial.

Anthony Denman:
What about Centennial Park? Do you guys ever go to Centennial Park?

Igal Leis:
Yeah. All the time.

Elia Leis:
Yeah, all the time.

Anthony Denman:
What does that look like?

Igal Leis:
There’s a lot of trees.

Elia Leis:
No, there’s always picnics. There’s always kids’ functions. I have a 13-year-old girl that goes to school locally, and all her friends meet and have parties and go for walks in Centennial Park. Igal has kids that are growing up as well, a little bit younger. I think Centennial Park is the go-to place for that generation as they’re growing up.

Igal Leis:
Over the years, we’ve used Centennial Park for many different things, ranging from exercise, and jogging, and just going for a stroll. When the kids were little, we used to take them to… There’s a beautiful playground with the bike track on the one end of the park. Very often we have picnics there, family picnics or birthday picnics that people organize or the family organizes.

Anthony Denman:
What about Allianz Stadium? Have you both ever been to any games?

Igal Leis:
Yeah. Yeah.

Anthony Denman:
If you could just imagine being in top floor apartment and you know how the excitement builds around those big games? All of a sudden there’s more people on the street wearing the club colors, the bars and the club start to fill up. And if you going to the game, you’re kind of excited about that, especially living in that apartment, watching that unfold.

Elia Leis:
Oh, you can see that excitement all up Oxford Street, Paddington, and as people walking down towards the stadium. And they’re spilling out of all the pubs as well in the lead up to those games, especially a Roosters St. George game on Anzac Day, which is iconic as well and has a lot of history behind it. But yes, you can feel the intensity and the anticipation in Bondi Junction, which is the home of the Roosters, the leagues club. But, you see the players walk around the streets. I mean, living in Oxford Street, all the players are local. You see them in the local bars and restaurants. You see them at Centennial Park exercising as well. So yeah, the buzz, it does create the buzz around, especially Anzac Day, but most Roosters home games, they’re in the streets, and with their kids, and with their friends, and with their mates. It’s quite a special feeling.

Igal Leis:
Well, whenever there’s a sports event at one of those stadiums, whether it’s the cricket ground or the football stadium, you see people come and park here, or they come from the train station, and they walk all the way from Bondi Junction to the stadiums because it’s quite close. So, I think, living within that proximity is amazing, especially if you’re a fan of cricket, or rugby, or soccer and just put your scarf on and go down the lift and five minutes later you’re at the game.

Anthony Denman:
So, do you guys go to the Opera House march to see shows?

Igal Leis:
I have never been to a show at the Opera House.

Anthony Denman:
Sure.

Igal Leis:
I did propose to my wife at the Opera House.

Anthony Denman:
Did you?

Igal Leis:
I did actually. Yeah, I did.

Anthony Denman:
Yeah, right. Whereabouts?

Igal Leis:
I didn’t plan to, but it just happened that way.

Anthony Denman:
Whereabouts at the Opera House?

Igal Leis:
Where? You walk up the steps and you go towards the Harbor Bridge, and right in front of the… Looking at the Harbor Bridge and the Opera House is right next to you, that’s where it happened.

Anthony Denman:
Did you have a ring?

Igal Leis:
Usually you have to have a ring, no, for a proposal?

Anthony Denman:
Yeah, but you said it wasn’t planned.

Igal Leis:
No, it wasn’t planned to be there. It wasn’t planned to be there. We were flying to Bali and I was going to surprise her in Bali, except the flight got canceled and about five hours later they said that it’s not flying today. They said, “We’ll put you up at a hotel, come back tomorrow.” And I was so keen and so excited to propose already. I said, “I’m not going to wait another day to do it in Bali.” So I said, “Let’s go to the Opera House.” That’s the best place I could think of in Sydney to propose.

Elia Leis:
It’s a beautiful place. Quite iconic Opera House and Harbor Bridge. That’s what Sydney’s all about, right? And you can see that from your balcony at the Centennial Collection. We don’t get to the city much, but it’s quite easy just jump on the train from Bondi Junction to Circular Key and you’re there.

Anthony Denman:
Let’s talk about New Year’s Eve. Imagine what it would be like from up here.

Elia Leis:
I can tell you what it’d be like because each of the developments that we have done, the one that we’re sitting in right now, Bondi Central has an amazing rooftop terrace that gets booked out with 200 people up there to watch the fireworks on level 14. So, Centennial Collection will be 16 levels, and you’ll be able to have front row seat because it’s much closer and taller than this building. Even from the very first one we did, The Forum that we mentioned previously, the rooftop is quite generous up there and everyone goes up and watches the fireworks.

Igal Leis:
New Year’s Eve fireworks display is definitely one of the highlights of the roof terraces that we build, some of the ones we’ve built already, and most certainly it’ll be at Centennial, because it’s completely uninterrupted, unobstructed views towards the city and the Opera House. You feel like you’re right there because you’re so high. Yeah, you see the whole display.

Elia Leis:
Well, residents get to meet people in the building that they’ve never met before as well. So, it’s a nice communal thing as well. And everyone’s in a good mood on New Year’s Eve watching the fireworks, so it’s a good way to build friends and relationships.

Igal Leis:
It’ll be interesting actually at Centennial, because it’s the first one that we actually are doing with a communal pool on that same roof terrace. So, it’ll be interesting to see what happens during that New Year’s celebration.

Elia Leis:
Yeah. One can only imagine.

Anthony Denman:
How did you get the extra six levels, the Panorama release?

Igal Leis:
During the construction of Centennial, the Department of Planning has brought out new planning reforms, new planning rules, and it so happened that we were able to apply and get consent fairly quickly for additional levels at Centennial. And we are calling them Panorama, those additional levels, because they’re so special and so unique in where they are, what they are, the height, the views. And luckily we have catered for potentially having more levels. So, we’ve allowed for that in our foundations. We’ve allowed for that in our basement, in our parking, in the number of lifts we provided. We made a good investment at the start with the hope that something like that will happen and it did.

Elia Leis:
Well, not even that. We over-engineer all our buildings to make them obviously safe and more livable, and it just so happens that we engineered it well enough to support another-

Igal Leis:
Few levels.

Elia Leis:
… few levels, yeah.

Anthony Denman:
All of your construction obviously is in-house.

Igal Leis:
All the construction is in-house. We are developers and in-house builders, and we use very regular contractors. Some of them have been with us from day one and their businesses have grown with our businesses. Same formworkers, and same bricklayers and same electricians, a lot of the trades.

Anthony Denman:
It’s become very obvious over the last, what, seven, eight years that there’s been a lot of developers who haven’t done the right thing via building codes and the whole industry’s had to clamp down on that. You guys have been around for 26 years. Could have been easy for you to just take the simple way out and just cut a few corners. Clearly you haven’t.

Elia Leis:
Well, the simple way out is not to cut corners and to sleep at night and have an easy life and do the right thing.

Anthony Denman:
Yeah. I think I heard somewhere, “Hard decisions, easy life. Easy decisions, hard life.”

Elia Leis:
And that’s exactly right. I aspire to that, what you just said, because it will follow you for the next seven years of defects if you don’t do it right. So, you may as well do it right in the first place.

Igal Leis:
I think we realized very early on that firstly, our reputation is very important to us. Secondly, that people are paying very good money for the product that we produce and they deserve the quality. And because we were developer builders, we did not have to find builders to do it on the cheap, we were able to control the whole process and engage good contractors, produce a good product and still do it at a reasonable cost because no one was charging us a margin on top. Because, we fully control the process, fully control the quality, and fully control the costs, we can deliver a good product, good quality product. And we’ve never had a defect claim against us. We’ve never had any major problems. We’ve never had an inspector come and crucify us. We’ve never had any lawyers come up and punish us, because we’ve simply built correctly, done the right thing, used good contractors, spend maybe a little bit more money than someone else would.
And we looked at the long-term development play rather than just let’s do one project on the cheap, sell it and get out. We still operate under the same building company, same building license since 1995. There’s never been ever one complaint against it. And that’s pretty difficult when you’ve built hundreds of apartments over the years, but we’ve managed to keep a very good track record.

Anthony Denman:
There’d be a lot of developers around that’d be very envious of that. In this particular project, there’s quite a bit of amenity.

Igal Leis:
So, Centennial has two towers, and we decided to introduce two swimming pools for everyone to use, which doesn’t happen very often on developments. We have one rooftop swimming pool, which we call the summer pool, and that’s on the top of the Oxford Street Tower. And that is surrounded by a communal roof terrace with the barbecue facilities, and sitting areas, and beautiful planter boxes. And all of this is overviewing the whole of Sydney, the harbor views. And then, we have another winter swimming pool, which is located on level one of the other tower, the Nelson Tower. And that one is undercover and it’s a lap pool of about 15 meters long. And it also has a sauna and a steam room located there. In addition, there will be a gym located on the ground floor of the Nelson Tower for the use of everyone in the building.
I was going to say that as a builder and given that we’ve very well advanced in the construction program of Centennial, I’ve now realized that this particular project has pushed me to the highest level of my career. And all the experience I’ve gained in the last 30 years of building is being used at the construction of Centennial. And it’s honestly the best sort of quality that I’ve ever done. The attention to detail is phenomenal. The best materials, the best practices that I’m getting everything inspected along the way, everything is done to perfection, obviously to compliance, to perfection. And I must say I’ve pushed myself on this one. It’s really going to be the best building I’ve ever built.

Elia Leis:
From a view perspective, I think it would be one of the best views in the Eastern Suburbs. Definitely Bondi Junction, but on a broader Eastern Suburbs perspective, it would definitely be one of the best views, one of the highest points in the Eastern Suburbs. In terms of finishes, yeah, it would rival any of the other developments currently that’s being built. Originally we wanted to bring a bit of double bay to Bondi Junction and we had the capacity to do that with the phenomenal views. So we were happy to spend the money upgrading all the finishes to a double bay style finish. And, I think, it’s been incredibly received. And, I think, for any other developer, if they want to produce those finishes in Bondi Junction, I think it works. People want it now. People expect it. So, from a finisher’s perspective, from a quality perspective, like Igal said, from a view and building amenity perspective, I think it’s one of the best in the Eastern Suburbs currently, yes.

Igal Leis:
I also think in Bondi Junction, there’s a number of other tall buildings, but we are not only tall, but we are the closest one to the city, the closest one to the harbor out of all the buildings in Bondi Junction. So, certainly the best views will be from Centennial Collection.

Elia Leis:
Well, not only that, it’s a standalone island. It’s not surrounded by other buildings. It’s got the openness of being somewhere in, not quite, but somewhere in the country, you feel like you don’t have any neighbors around you.

Anthony Denman:
That’s a really good point. You actually don’t have any neighbours really around you, which is really rare, isn’t it? Obviously anywhere I suppose.

Elia Leis:
It is rare in a built up town center. It’s rare in the city and in places like Chatswood, and Epping, and Bondi Junction, particularly to have a standalone island site with no neighbors looking over you is quite rare.

Anthony Denman:
Okay. This is the last question. How do you hope people will feel the first time they step into a completed Panorama residence and experience that view?

Igal Leis:
I think when they arrive at their apartment or at an apartment on the higher levels of Panorama or any level of Panorama, they will first be surprised by the level of finish that they will see and the quality of finish that they will see. And that’s right from the entry into the apartment. And then, as they progress towards the balcony and the view, I think that not only will they see the amazing view, but they’ll just feel like they’re part of the view and part of Sydney because you can just see the whole of Sydney right in front of you there. Not only see it, you can feel it. That’s the beauty of being up there. A picture cannot describe it. You feel like you’re part of this great city.

Elia Leis:
I’m hoping when they walk in, when they see the finishes, they say, “Wow.” And when they walk onto the balcony with the view, I am hoping it will take their breath away because it really is unexpectedly unique.