After Bathla’s Collapse, Why KDMC Is Emerging as the Trusted Name in Marsden Park
4 min
A Perfect Storm Claims a Major Player
Western Sydney’s property development sector was rattled this week by the collapse of Bathla Group, one of the region’s most prominent builders of affordable housing.
Administrators from Teneo were appointed to the group’s main entity, Universal Property Group, along with related firm Raj & Jai Construction, after months of mounting financial pressure.
The scale of the fallout is significant. Universal Property Group reported liabilities of $3.2 billion as at June last year, the bulk of it owed to private credit funds, a detail likely to draw scrutiny as administrators work through the group’s finances.
Founder Bhart Bhushan pointed to a “perfect storm” of softening sales, the impact of May’s federal budget changes and rising construction costs. Bathla’s chief executive was more blunt, acknowledging that falling property prices and climbing build costs had squeezed the business over a sustained period.
The human cost is already visible. Off-the-plan buyers across Bathla’s Western Sydney projects, including in Schofields, Marsden Park and Tallawong, suburbs at the heart of the group’s development pipeline, are now facing uncertainty over deposits, settlement timelines and unfinished builds.
It’s a story that has become depressingly familiar in NSW, with more than 1,500 construction firms going under in the state this financial year alone.
A Market Searching for Certainty
Bathla’s failure isn’t an isolated event. It’s a symptom of the conditions squeezing developers across Western Sydney, and Marsden Park sits right at the centre of that pressure.
Rising construction costs, tighter lending and softening buyer sentiment have combined to push even large, established players to the wall.
For prospective buyers looking at Marsden Park, the collapse has sharpened a question that was already on many minds: not just whether a development looks good on paper, but whether the developer behind it has the staying power, capital discipline and planning relationships to actually deliver.
In that environment, track record has become the differentiator that matters most.
Buyers are no longer simply comparing floorplans and masterplans. They’re asking who has the balance sheet, discipline and history to see a precinct through from approval to completion.
KDMC: 25 Years, Zero Incomplete Projects
Against that backdrop, KDMC’s position in Marsden Park stands out.
The Kanebridge Group development arm has been building in Northwest Sydney for 25 years and, in that time, has never left a project unfinished.
That’s not a marketing line. It’s a completion record buyers can check against a market that has just delivered a stark reminder of what happens when developers overextend.
KDMC’s flagship Marsden Park project, a roughly 1,320-home precinct at 264A South Street, reflects the scale of ambition the suburb now needs from a developer that can actually deliver it.
It’s also a project with history.
Back in 2017, KDMC launched Stage One of the development and sold 49 units in a single day, a result that speaks for itself in terms of market confidence.
Shortly after, the project was abruptly put on hold when Transport for NSW halted the DA to reserve the site for a future train line. It would have been easy for a lesser developer to walk away.
Instead, that pause has turned into the site’s greatest asset.
With the train line now set to connect Marsden Park directly to both Sydney Airport and the CBD, the residual site has become one of the most sought-after development opportunities in Sydney, a rare case of patience and planning discipline converting a setback into a generational upside.
The current stage of the project is backed by lodged State Environmental Assessment Requirements and formal development applications, along with independent valuation and transport infrastructure analysis.
The aim is to ensure the precinct is grounded in real, defensible fundamentals, precisely the kind of financial and planning discipline that was missing in Bathla’s playbook.
KDMC has also backed its recent projects with a 10-year defect warranty, well beyond the statutory minimum most buyers have come to expect.
For anyone who has just watched a major developer collapse mid-build, that kind of guarantee isn’t a nice-to-have. It’s the difference between a confident purchase and a leap of faith.
The Bottom Line for Marsden Park Buyers
Marsden Park’s growth story doesn’t need more supply promises. It needs a developer who delivers on them.
With Bathla out of the picture and its Marsden Park buyers left assessing their options, KDMC’s quarter-century of completed projects and extended defect cover offer something increasingly rare in the current climate: certainty.
For anyone weighing up where to place their trust in Marsden Park right now, the calculation has become simple.
Choose a developer with a story of every project finished, and a site whose fortunes have only strengthened with time, not a headline about one that wasn’t.
For more information email propertyconcierge@kanebridge.com.au
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All three vehicles will form part of a broader charitable initiative benefiting Big Brothers Big Sisters of America, the American Red Cross and Starlight Children’s Foundation
Jack Freeman believes the most compelling interiors are not decorated, but collected. The FREEMAN & CO founder creates layered, personal spaces shaped by art, travel and craftsmanship.
4 min
For Jack Freeman, a compelling interior should not look as though it was completed in a single shopping trip.
The founder and designer behind FREEMAN & CO prefers rooms that develop through art, travel, commissioned furniture and objects collected over time. It is an approach that treats the home less as a decorative project and more as an evolving portrait of its owner.
“I am a true believer in collecting versus decorating,” Freeman says.
That distinction underpins the international practice he has built across private residences, hotels, property developments, yachts and private aviation. Its projects stretch from Point Piper, Vaucluse, Circular Quay and Toorak to Mayfair, Bel Air and the Caribbean.
Although the locations and architecture vary considerably, the work is connected by a restrained design language. Natural stone, warm timbers and sculptural furniture establish the foundation, while art, bespoke lighting and individual objects give each interior its identity.
The objective is not to overwhelm a room with obvious symbols of expense. It is to create an environment that feels calm, layered and particular to the people living within it.
“The greatest luxury isn’t about excess,” Freeman says. “It’s about creating an oasis where you come home and feel immediately grounded — effortlessly chic and deeply personal.”
Collecting instead of decorating
Decorating can imply the completion of a room: selecting the required furniture, filling the available walls and producing a coherent finished image.
Collecting is less conclusive.
A collected interior has room to change as its owners travel, discover artists, inherit pieces or reassess how they use their home. Its character comes from the relationship between objects rather than adherence to a single brand or season.
That does not mean placing unrelated pieces together without discipline. The designer must understand scale, proportion, material and provenance well enough to create a dialogue between them.
A contemporary artwork might sit beside a historic piece of furniture. A precisely detailed new interior may be interrupted by an irregular object made by hand. Smooth stone can be balanced by timber, textiles or a patinated metal surface that becomes richer with age.
The tension between those elements is part of the appeal.
For Freeman, art is not an accessory to be added once the furniture plan is complete. It forms part of the architecture and atmosphere of the room from the beginning.
Lighting is considered in the same way. Beyond its practical purpose, a bespoke fitting can operate as a suspended sculpture, changing both the room’s composition and the way its materials are experienced after dark.
A design perspective shaped by travel
International travel plays a significant role in Freeman’s creative process.
Design fairs such as PAD Paris and Salone del Mobile in Milan provide opportunities to encounter emerging designers, established galleries, new materials and collectible furniture away from the filter of social media.
More spontaneous discoveries can prove equally important.
“Sometimes it’s the simple things,” Freeman says. “That piece found on a shopping trip with a client in Paris, stumbling across an artisan’s workshop, or a special memory that forms the narrative of the story.”
Objects selected during travel bring more than visual interest into a home. They carry an association with a place, maker or experience, giving the client a connection that cannot be reproduced by ordering an entire interior from a catalogue.
Freeman’s influences are international, but his projects are not conceived as replicas of Parisian, Milanese or Californian style. Each commission responds to its architecture, setting, natural light and the daily lives of its occupants.
A waterfront Sydney residence demands a different treatment from a Mayfair townhouse. A Caribbean estate shaped by brutalist architecture and reflecting pools calls for another response again.
The designer’s role is to absorb those references without allowing them to overwhelm the individual qualities of the property.
Designing the complete experience
FREEMAN & CO extends beyond conventional interior decoration.
The practice’s stated services include interior design and architecture, project management, property acquisition, development advice, concept design, documentation, furniture and lighting design, procurement and art curation.
That breadth allows the team to become involved before a room’s dimensions and finishes are fixed.
Early participation can be important at the top end of the residential market, where architecture, landscape, interiors, technology and art must operate as one environment. Decisions about ceiling heights, wall dimensions, sightlines and lighting can directly affect where art is installed or how custom furniture is proportioned.
The practice can then carry those decisions through to procurement and final installation, maintaining the design narrative as a project moves between architects, builders, specialist craftspeople, dealers and suppliers.
Its residential portfolio includes a South Coast retreat conceived as an escape from urban life, a Caribbean estate with reflecting pools, an East Coast-inspired Palm Beach residence and a Mayfair townhouse organised around an expressive drawing room.
The studio also says it has worked on highly tailored Sydney residences with values exceeding $100 million, although the private nature of such commissions means individual addresses and clients are not always disclosed.
A home that can keep changing
The risk in creating a perfectly resolved interior is that it can become too static — a composition that looks exceptional in photographs but leaves little room for life.
Freeman sees the home as something that should evolve with its owners.
“I love the evolution of design,” he says. “We are talking about people’s lives, and as they evolve, so too should their private sanctuaries.”
That evolution might involve adding art, reupholstering a significant piece, adapting rooms as a family changes or making space for objects gathered through future travels.
The original design needs to be strong enough to accommodate those layers.
This may be the clearest expression of Freeman’s approach to luxury. It is not simply access to rare stone, collectible furniture or commissioned craftsmanship. It is the creation of a personal environment whose meaning deepens rather than diminishes with time.
Fact box
- Designer: Jack Freeman
- Role: Founder and managing director
- Practice: FREEMAN & CO
- Base: Australia, with international projects
- Project locations named by the practice: Point Piper, Vaucluse, Circular Quay, Toorak, Palm Beach, the NSW South Coast, Mayfair, Bel Air and the Caribbean
- Sectors: Private residences, hotels, residential developments, private aviation and superyachts
- Services: Interior design and architecture, property development, project management, property acquisition, documentation, furniture and lighting design, FF&E procurement, interior dressing and art curation
- Design philosophy: Collected, personal interiors shaped by art, craftsmanship, travel and enduring materials
- Website: free-man.co
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