Aqualand and Etymon are building community around Aura North Sydney

With Aura now complete and residents established at 168 Walker Street, Aqualand’s approach to the North Sydney development is increasingly visible beyond the apartments themselves.

The $1 billion, 386-residence project was completed in 2024, with a final collection of one, two, three and four-bedroom residences and penthouses now remaining.

But a significant part of the project’s broader role in North Sydney has been shaped at ground level, where Aqualand’s hospitality and services business, Etymon, has been used to create places and services designed for both residents and the surrounding community.

When outlining the hospitality group’s strategy in 2022, then-CEO Lisa Hobbs said its venues were intended to become “a social anchor for the local community, a neighbourhood destination to gather”. Etymon is now led by CEO Adam Petta.

That philosophy was first demonstrated at Aqualand’s BLUE at Lavender Bay, where Loulou Bistro, Boulangerie and Traiteur established a hospitality destination within the residential development.

Aura has allowed the model to expand further in North Sydney.

Award-winning and local favourite, Café LouLou, provides a hospitality offering at ground level, adding another local venue within the broader North Sydney neighbourhood.

The hospitality offering sits alongside the private amenity within Aura itself, which includes an indoor pool and spa, gym, lounge and community spaces, private dining facilities and a rooftop sky deck with barbecue areas. Residents also have access to Tesla vehicles and daily concierge services.

Etymon Concierge is central to the resident side of that community model.

The concierge operates at Aura seven days a week and provides day-to-day building and lifestyle support for residents.

That relationship has continued to develop since residents began moving into Aura in July 2024.

Earlier this year, Etymon Concierge surveyed Aura residents about the activities they wanted to see in 2026, with the group saying the feedback was already informing future programming.

The AURA Residents App, or IBMS, provides another practical part of the resident experience, allowing homeowners to log defects following settlement and book facilities within the development.

Alongside the core concierge offering is Black Key, Etymon’s invitation-only lifestyle management service.

Black Key can arrange tasks ranging from grocery and meal deliveries to event tickets and international travel arrangements. The service has also been included with Aura’s final penthouses, Il Magnate and La Divina, extending the project’s resident offering into a more personalised, members-only model.

It reflects a broader idea behind Aura: that the residential experience can extend beyond the apartment and shared facilities into the services, hospitality and connections operating around them.

Aura is around 250 metres from Victoria Cross Metro and the North Sydney CBD, with Sydney CBD and Chatswood around five minutes away by Metro. North Sydney Oval and St Leonards Park are also nearby, while schools including Reddam House North Shore, Wenona and Monte Sant’ Angelo Mercy College form part of the surrounding neighbourhood.

Aqualand Managing Director Jin Lin recently described Aura as a “thriving new precinct with residents well and truly settled”, as the developer entered the final sales phase of the project.

A final release of residences is now underway, with one-bedroom residences priced from $1.29 million.