On the up — Local Paddo

Stuart Gregor well remembers what Surry Hills was like when he arrived in the ‘hood as a teenager.

“I moved into Surry Hills in 1987 and I can tell you that back then it was a shithole,” says Gregor, with his trademark candour. “It was the first place I moved to straight out of school when I got my job at News Corporation and Surry Hills was full of young journalists living in terraces and it was dirty and dangerous.

“But when you’ve grown up in an area and you’re really familiar with it, you know where the good places are and where the potential is.”

These days, for Gregor, the Surry Hills of the 1980s is a distant memory. The suburb is in the grip of a remarkable urban renewal, with an unprecedented demand for real estate, new bars and restaurants opening, international creative and venture businesses moving in, and a sense that Surry Hills’ moment may have arrived.

“It’s feeling a little bit like the Soho of New York,” Gregor says. “You’ve got these cool creative agencies and cool creative businesses setting up groovy, sexy offices which is bringing cool, sexy young people into the village and that’s bringing people who are looking for better experiences.”

Gregor’s relationship with Surry Hills has latterly come full circle. Years after he left to live and work in other places, most recently in not-too-distant Alexandria, he has returned to his old stomping ground.

Last year, Gregor’s Four Pillars Gin opened its first Sydney bar — the Four Pillars Laboratory — on Crown St. He also decided to move the business’s back-of-house staff, as well of those working at his public relations firm, Liquid Ideas, into rented office space on Crown St.

“We’ve taken a floor of office space on the corner of Albion and Crown and that’s 40-45 staff in there,” he says. “We’re loving it here.”

Four Pillars Lab, with Stuart Gregor on left

Four Pillars Laboratory is one of a string of businesses along a patch of Crown St between Albion and Foveaux streets that makes a particularly strong amalgam on the strip. Along with the Lab, the Dolphin Hotel, the Crown Street Grocer, Bill Granger’s stylish Bills cafe and Italian restaurants Bartolo, Pizza Fritta 180 and Eggs, Flour and Water now offer a stretch of drinking and dining that is as strong as what's on offer on any other high street across Sydney.

It has helped that following COVID’s decimation of hospitality in 2020, the City of Sydney council has allowed outdoor dining to proliferate on the strip.

“I don’t know any place in the world where people don’t want to walk along and see people dining outdoors,” says Gregor. “Crown St has a chance now to be one of Sydney’s great boulevards, if they can keep the outdoor dining going.”

The Dolphin’s publican, Christian Denny, agrees that the outdoor dining on Crown St has been “amazing” in terms of bringing people back to the area.

“We are thankful and appreciative for the support and vision of City of Sydney in helping so many businesses recover from the huge impact of COVID,” Denny says.

“I don’t think Crown St has ever looked so vibrant and engaging. Giving people precedence over cars has to be the best formula to truly enhance the neighbourhood. We’re hopeful that the council will continue this ongoing.”

Denny says that while Crown St has always been the “beating heart of Surry Hills”, it remains a work in progress. He believes there are a few factors that will change the nature of the suburb again during coming years, including the renovation of the Sydney Football Stadium and the influx of creatives into the area.

On that front, in recent times graphic design behemoth Canva has moved into a space on Kippax St, the Monkeys ad agency and its creative teams are headquartered on South Dowling St and venture capitalist outfit Blackbird Ventures is now on Albion St.

International tech giant Atlassian is moving to nearby Lee St, Haymarket, in its $1bn purpose-built, all-timber tower, which may have influenced staffer Nick Menere’s decision to last month splash out more than $11m on the (admittedly beautiful) Italianate House on Albion St.

The tram line that now runs through Devonshire St, while painful during construction, is bringing new people into the area, and the renovation of the Sydney Football Stadium at Moore Park will also change the complexion of Surry Hills when it is completed. Footy fans will again flow up from Central to the stadium for weekly games, bringing another influx of visitors through the streets.

Denny agrees there is a demographic change happening in the area but argues it retains its colour and feel.

“We’re seeing more and more young clientele who work in creative fields coming into the pubs,” he says. “But you still have a colourful selection of people, a kaleidoscope of humanity; the rich fabric of Surry Hills is still strong.”

The Winery’s manager Michael Gavaghan agrees, saying that colour and movement has helped Surry Hills’ post-pandemic recovery.

“Surry Hills really is coming back to life; all the bars are starting to get filled up and where in other suburbs you still see a lot of vacancy signs around, the retailers here tend to stay for a long time,” he says. “In Potts Point, for example, there are not many people on the street anymore. It’s no longer a destination suburb. But Surry Hills is.”

While Crown St may be in a state of flux, another big change will happen when Surry Hills Village opens on Baptist St (across Cleveland St at the end of Crown St) in 2023. Developed by the Toga Group, which built the Adina Hotel on Crown St almost 30 years ago, Surry Hills Village will see construction of 122 luxury apartments, along with retail, restaurants and a 102-room hotel on the 1.2ha site of what was the dingy Surry Hills Shopping Village (also well known in these parts as 'murder mall').

Toga CEO Fabrizio Perilli says he has long had an affinity with Surry Hills and can only see the opportunities for the suburb increasing.

“We came here 30 years ago when we built the Adina and it was basically a dilapidated part of town,” he says. “We started the rejuvenation of this part of Surry Hills and we have been afforded the opportunity to continue that further down the street.”

Perilli says the rejuvenation that has occurred on the northern end of Crown St is now spilling south, with better businesses moving in all the time.

“I think that on the northern part of Crown St, there’s a very well-established precinct of businesses and quality operators and they are slowly stretching down. I think the light rail that’s gone in, together with what we’re doing, will give an opportunity for the southern part of Crown St to come to life.”

While Crown St may be demanding a lot of attention, other pockets in the neighbourhood continue to find their groove, too. The precinct around the phenomenon that is Chin Chin restaurant, on Commonwealth St, continues to thrive with historic buildings turned into amazing properties, including the Paramount House Hotel.

One concern for that precinct relates to the future of the gloriously art deco Hollywood Hotel, which last month went up for sale. Locals are hoping a publican will buy it, rather than a developer.

Denny, who is also the publican at Hotel Harry’s, right near the Hollywood precinct, says that area has boomed during the past decade.

“We bought Harry’s in 2013, and back then it was just us, Spice I Am and Longrain as flag bearers in the area with the rest of the area vacant, unloved, desolate and just a touch run down. Since then we’ve seen the evolution of this precinct — Paramount House, Tio’s, D.O.C, Chin Chin, Butter, Poly, Firedoor, Alberto’s (which was Berta before that), Nomad and, by the end of this year, the famous Ace Hotel will be opening up 100m down the road.”

Denny says that Surry Hills is unique among inner-city areas in that it has an eclectic mix of inhabitants and buildings.

“You cannot pigeonhole Surry Hills, nor would you want to. Surry Hills' true appeal will always be underpinned by its diversity, spontaneity and inclusiveness, and creativity, all located on the southern fringe of the Sydney CBD. Surry Hills is its own beast, it’s unique among Sydney suburbs.”