Wentworth Point Suburb Review

Summary: A potential glimpse into the “future of Sydney” that may be gradually rolled out en masse as densification continues to be pushed, Wentworth Point offers a concentrated pocket of ultra-convenient yet somewhat sterile ‘living in a box’. Sydney’s densest suburb is all about modernly-designed, minimalistic urban living while having immediate, on-your-doorstep, on-foot (or at least, on-bike) access to all the required amenities for daily life.

As a result, this is a spot designed for those who don’t desire or require a yard or ample amounts of living space, and instead choose to focus on a combination of affordability and location that its exclusively-unit housing profile offers. Everything is new, glassy and shiny while having had a decent amount of master-planned greenery & riverfront scenery interspersed throughout, while Wentworth Point’s highly professionally-oriented demographic makes it a very low-crime place to live as well.

It suffers somewhat from a disconnect from having rail transport right on its doorstep while also having traffic & parking issues for those who are still car-reliant, and as a result is best for those who can other avoid car ownership entirely. It’s also, by its inherent nature, not going to be for everyone, as it’s about as antithetical to the traditional “Australian dream” of roomy, detached house living as one can get in present-day Sydney.

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How you feel about Wentworth Point as a suburb will entirely depend on the lens through which you view what modern-day Australian, big-city living should be all about.

Depending on your perspective, this is either:

1. an ultra-convenient and highly-efficient slice of urban living that minimises the environmental impact of population growth while maximising access to services, or alternatively…
2. the complete opposite of what a desirable home lifestyle in a large country should be all about

…with virtually no middle-ground in-between.

What was once simply a dilapidated pocket of industrial land on the Parramatta River, has been gradually (and is still being) transformed into a suburb of glass towers, waterfront apartments, and some of the highest-density living in the entire country.

Much like “sister” suburb Rhodes just across the water over the Bennelong Bridge, Wentworth Point is a concentrated hub of mixed-zoning in which mid-and-highrise towers sit above shops and storefronts below, all located around a 35 minute commute by public transport from the Sydney CBD.

While Wentworth Point doesn’t have its own train station, Rhodes Station itself lies around a 15 minute walk (or shorter bike ride) away from most residences on the island.

There’s also the dedicated Baylink shuttle bus – which is funded by Wentworth Point’s developers – that heads back and forth between the two suburbs and cuts down both on the need to walk as well as raw commute time, however during commuting periods these little buses can quickly fill up.

This also minimises one of the bigger benefits of Wentworth Point’s topography in the first place, as the suburb is almost completely flat and thus highly walkable/bikeable as a result. Couple this flat terrain with its good array of bike paths, and two wheels is a solid way to get from A to B here (as demonstrated by its near-ceaseless array of food delivery riders that are forever scooting around the suburb).

It also coincides with how (intentionally) car-averse the suburb is. This is a place that’s designed with not owning a car in mind, as even its Bennelong Bridge restricts private car access, which sounds idyllic in theory but doesn’t quite play out that way in reality.

For a suburb designed around avoiding car use it often still ends up strangely unavoidable, and combines with often not enough on-street parking to boot to make for not the best transport situation in reality.

Trains and platforms at Rhodes Station during peak hours are also typically highly crowded having already been basically at capacity for several years, as a direct result of serving as the one main rail hub for two incredibly dense suburbs.

Wentworth Point does also have a decent array of standard bus services on multiple routes that offer reasonable connectivity, connecting through to other major hubs such as Strathfield and Chatswood for transferring on to the Metro or heavy rail network.

Car drivers trying to head out of Wentworth Point via its main artery of Hill Road and head out to the wider road network don’t fare much better, either.

This street is busy at most hours – not only during weekdays, but also due to its proximity to Olympic Park – where frequent large-scale events take place, and often results in its major intersections backing up. There’s also infamous roundabouts in this area, and the suburb as a whole suffers a bit from “traffic chokepoint” issues as most people driving have to enter and exit from this one road.

For those who have the privilege of working in the northern half of the Sydney CBD, Wentworth Point offers ferry as an alternative option for travel. This is a pretty scenic journey that can be taken from its Sydney Olympic Park ferry terminal, however the nature of ferries and their speed means you’re looking at over a 50+ minute ferry ride alone while not even factoring in door-to-door time.

At least one of these commute options is going to be inevitable, as despite its density there are not too many choices in terms of actual workplaces on Wentworth Point itself… outside of casual hospitality/retail, or for those specifically working at the island’s Mitsubishi Electric building.

As a result, Work From Home becomes more desirable; however you’re also living in an apartment that may be fairly small in itself if trying to make it function as your workplace as well.

Outside of work, however, Wentworth Point has absolutely everything one could need for daily life all self-contained within its imaginary suburb borders. The suburb has been designed with accessibility to services in mind, and pretty much every kind of store (outside of major homeware-style retailers) is represented here.

For a relatively new suburb, it’s already pretty complete with a decent array of dining options, both in standalone ‘upmarket’ format and within its couple of dedicated shopping arcades and metro-style centres.

Its inherent design as a mixed-zoned and highrise-heavy suburb also means there’s frequent restaurants & retail at the bottom floor of many of its apartment buildings as well. So if you’re the type who doesn’t like to cook often, you’ll never have to walk very far to have some food readily available to buy.

Cafes, burger joints, bubble tea shops, sushi, Chinese and other Asian restaurants are all well-represented in this format, while Wentworth Point is also home to a couple of dedicated shopping/dining arcades in both covered (in the case of its Pierside shopping arcade on the north side) and outdoor (its older dining/retail strip along the Piazza in the south) forms.

These cover other essentials and services such as chemists, medical centres, dentists, pet care, miscellaneous specialist clinics and the like as well; throw in the odd gym and yoga centre, and there’s few things that aren’t covered in terms of most people’s daily needs.

This is without even mentioning its main “signature” shopping hub, either. Marina Square is a typical ‘Metro’-style condensed shopping centre that comes equipped with a Coles for supermarket needs, as well as ample other (typically Asian-leaning) amenities such as grocery stores and Asia-oriented cafes and restaurants.

It is reflective of Wentworth Point’s major demographic as a whole; the suburb leans heavily Chinese, and has been heavily propped up/created on the back of Chinese money in the first place.

There’s not much ‘western’ dining here outside of a couple of token chains, but that’s not much of a loss considering Rhodes (and its more-fully-sized shopping centre of Rhodes Waterside) can be reached fairly easily just across the river.

The only real downside is the aforementioned parking issues, making bigger shops a bit more painful; however if you can adapt your lifestyle to more frequent, smaller shops for your groceries then you’ll basically rarely have to drive within the suburb itself, if at all.

The suburb is small & compact enough that you’ll never be far away from any major amenity, and it follows an easy and logical grid format for getting around as well.

The only real downside to this layout is that Wentworth Point’s fairly exposed location surrounded by water means that many of its long, block-style streets experience a fairly strong ‘wind tunnel’ effect.

On windier days, walking around can be a bit of a pain here versus other suburbs in particular, as the breeze often gets funnelled straight into your face and combines with the looming shadows of its larger buildings to make things quite cold in the cooler months.

Nature-wise, Wentworth Point’s planners gave adding dashes of greenery about as much of a fair go as they could, but is always going to be restricted by the fact it’s a high-density suburb at its core.

There’s obviously no chance at a back yard for anyone planning to live here, which can either be a negative or a plus depending on things like how much you love gardening and/or hate yardwork.

Suburb planners have done a decent job of mixing in trees and wide hedgerows amongst its streets wherever possible, which helps break up the ‘concrete jungle’ feel somewhat.

There’s ample towering palm trees dotted throughout, as well as a handful of neatly-groomed little ‘pocket parks’ nestled amongst its various apartment towers. Everything is well-trimmed and kept tidy and orderly, keeping things pretty if not somewhat a little sterile.

Kids are semi-decently serviced via some pretty-okay playgrounds – most notably at Bay Park on the suburb’s south side – and many of its larger apartment complexes encircle various green spaces in the middle, or have outdoor pools for a communal swim.

Meanwhile a dose of larger, more ‘untamed’ greenery is available on Wentworth Point’s west side on the suburb’s border with Newington.

The aptly-named Newington Nature Reserve and its encircling bike track is quite a solid walking and cycling area for some exercise that flows through some ponds and marshlands, for both you and your pet (kept on a leash, of course).

However it also suffers from that same common problem of limited parking, with a very small carpark given its popularity, so riding instead of driving here in the first place is the better choice.

One other, interesting-but-quite-niche, public space comes courtesy of its Archery Centre to the south.

Exactly as its name implies, those interested can pay to take part in a spot of arrow-shooting, or also enjoy its adjacent parkland area that is functional if unspectacular.

Wentworth Point also benefits somewhat from a natural perspective due to the simple fact that it’s almost entirely surrounded by water.

While this part of the Parramatta River isn’t particularly stunning in terms of its views – most of the time you’re just looking over the water at the other highrises of Rhodes – it still provides a sunny, open and airy feel.

On sunny days in particular, the blue glow of the water is just objectively nice. Its foreshore walkway areas are also wide and flat, and again make for another good place for a human and/or dog walk.

And pet owners will need to take advantage of such public spaces, given the mandatory apartment living here. Despite the fact that it’s only an “apartment suburb”, Wentworth Point does a pretty good job of being dog-friendly, with many of its cafes and public-facing amenities having dog bowls of water, and allowing dogs in general.

There’s a higher ratio of dog-walkers here than you might otherwise presume. Combine this with its flat terrain, and you’ll want to be out and about walking the pets on a regular basis.

It’s not all “roses” in these outdoor areas of Wentworth Point, however. Simply put: the outer portions of the suburb often give off that “rotten egg” smell a fair bit due to its mangroves, especially during lower tides. These also bring in the mosquitoes, which put a bit of a damper on things as the sun starts to go down. It’s mostly only isolated to pockets of the suburb, but still worth mentioning.

Outside of these food and park areas, there’s also not really that much to do entertainment-wise in Wentworth Point itself. It mainly serves as a convenient place to live and eat, and then take advantage of its location to head out to other areas for things to see and do.

This includes the benefits of being so close to Olympic Park itself; music concerts, sporting matches and other events that take place frequently there are all just basically around the corner, so you’d want to be the type to take advantage of all of these to maximise the benefits of living here.

Outside of these, those with kids are one of the least-likely demographics to benefit from living here. Despite the presence of its schools – it’s got pretty good/new school infrastructure in its duo of Wentworth Point Public & High Schools, with ongoing upgrades underway – it’s not without its challenges for those with children.

The suburb’s sheer density (both current and forecast) makes overcrowding in the schools themselves already a real concern, and its playgrounds are quite small, with not much else in the way of ‘fun’ things for kids. This is particularly true on rainy days, outside perhaps of its play centre in Marina Square.

Managing/monitoring access to the water can also be a bit of a concern for parents here, as it’s quite easy for kids to simply jump in if not monitored correctly. In addition, the pure fact that you’ll be raising kids in an apartment may simply be a no-go prospect for some, unless you’re able to secure a larger (and thus more expensive) unit with multiple rooms.

On the plus side, Wentworth Point is incredibly safe. Its professional-leaning and fairly-affluent demographic in general combines with its lack of “rowdy” spots such as pubs or train stations resulting in making it one of the lowest-crime suburbs in Sydney as of time of writing, with little to indicate that will change much in the future either.

Price-wise for those looking to live here, Wentworth Point is both simultaneously quite affordable and also a little bit expensive. So how can both be true at the same time?

For one, its median price is “cheap” simply by virtue of the fact that you can only buy an apartment here, and there’s no ritzy or massive mansion outliers that drive up the average by association.

However, a significant chunk of its apartment inventory is both new or near-new, and positioned more as ‘luxury’ apartment living – particularly if you’re looking for anything larger than a 1-bedroom, and doubly-so if you’re in search of 3 bedrooms.

As a result, while the current median apartment price sits at $748,000.00, that’s a little deceptive as a lot of the inventory in Wentworth Point is studios and one-bedders. For any kind of decent multi-bedroom apartment on the island, you’ll likely have to add at at least 10-20% onto that figure (if not more), especially if planning to live in one of its more ‘premium’ buildings.

The rapid rate at which many of Wentworth Point’s apartment towers have been constructed also leaves a bit of an unknown in terms of how they will fare quality-wise longer-term.

You can also get apartments for a fair chunk cheaper in several suburbs in the same vague ‘area’ down this western end of the river-adjacent slice of the city, often in buildings that are more solid/well-established too. Many of these suburbs also come with more ‘established’ streetscapes.

Or alternatively, there are other similar-distance suburbs elsewhere with direct rail connections of their own (e.g: Meadowbank, Hurstville, Arncliffe, Turrella etc.) and thus shorter commutes that might make them slightly more convenient for you within the same price range.

They likely won’t be as shiny and clean as Wentworth Point’s, however, and mostly won’t come with waterfront proximity or such a high level of streetscape maintenance, either.

The Verdict

Few suburbs are likely to be as polarising in modern-day Sydney as a place to live as this one.

It’s a suburb of extremes – extreme lack of land, extremely convenient amenities, extreme tidiness, extreme lack of ‘party’ atmosphere, et al – that Wentworth Point will be basically a dream place to live for some, and a nightmare for others depending on what you individually value in terms of lifestyle.

This is compounded by having little choice of any kind of “in-between” lifestyle due to its lack of townhouses/duplexes, meaning you’re either all-in on apartment living or simply not going to consider living here in the first place.

As a result, few suburbs more obviously cater to a specific demographic – professional workers, and perhaps more affluent uni students – while being mostly a non-starter for the likes of retirees, larger families, and other subsets of society. Even tradies mostly won’t want to consider living here due to their car-reliance; Wentworth Point is all about embracing the benefits of bike/public transport life and only “car-ing” it occasionally.

Wentworth Point also still suffers from a bit of “catch-up” syndrome, in that it’s growing faster in population than its amenities and green spaces can adequately keep up with.

While it has decent transport links (especially when factoring in Rhodes Station even though it’s not ‘technically’ within the suburb), these can still be a bit limiting, particularly if you work in a more distant part of Sydney. They’re also suffering somewhat from strain themselves already, and future infrastructure needs remain a concern.

It’s not all doom-and-gloom, however; what’s been done here so far has been done pretty tastefully, and the roomier nature of its wider and more open roads, water-fringed surrounds and good array of tree life makes for a more pleasant environment & streetscape than the likes of say, the more developed parts of a Wolli Creek or Mascot.

It’s safe, it’s clean, it’s well-laid-out, it’s got every kind of store you’d need at your fingertips for most days during the week outside of when you’re wanting to buy furniture or larger appliances, and it does have quite a ‘vibrant’ feel with many people regularly out & about enjoying the outdoors.

Overall this mainly makes it a suburb that’s an ideal rent-first-and-see-how-you-like-it slice of life; those earlier in their careers, work-from-homers, or those not planning to have kids are likely to get the most out of Wentworth Point’s lifestyle, and renting for a year or two allows the suburb to mature a bit to see how things shake out before committing longer-term.

You could do a lot worse – the question is, for the same price could you also do a lot better elsewhere in Sydney? Wentworth Point’s simply not cheap enough housing-wise to make that to make that an open-and-closed argument, even for those specifically seeking apartment life.