The Agribusiness Precinct sits on the western edge of Western Sydney International Airport, and the first estate approved there was a warehouse park, not a farm.
Four sites carry the precinct so far. This article sets out each one, its address, its proponent and where it stands.
Written by Daniel Whitfield, founder of Australia Develops, who has personally bought, subdivided, and built property across Australia.
Agribusiness Precinct 2026 — The Pipeline
The precinct is one of six initial Aerotropolis precincts, alongside Northern Gateway and Mamre Road, and its planning package was finalised in March 2022.
| Site | Proponent | Scale | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2289–2311 Elizabeth Drive | Aware Real Estate with Barings | 19.4 ha, 63,537 sq m, seven buildings | Approved 15 April 2025 |
| 121 Willmington Road | Celestino | 20.6 ha of a 52.5 ha holding | Application lodged |
| 565–609 Luddenham Road | Celestino | 287 ha, 3,400 homes capped | First application lodged March 2026 |
| 812–844 Luddenham Road | Private investors | 12.16 ha | Sold 2019, since rezoned |
The Agribusiness Precinct pipeline
Job target from the Aerotropolis precinct plans. Project figures as approved or lodged.
Aerotropolis precinct plans describe the intent as integrated logistics, food innovation and intensive production, drawing on the area’s farming history.
The precinct sits at Luddenham and Rossmore, framed by the proposed Outer Sydney Orbital, with access from Luddenham Road and Elizabeth Drive.
What has been built so far reads differently from the label. The first major approval delivers 63,537 square metres of warehousing across seven buildings.
That gap between the zoning name and the first tenant type is the most useful thing to understand about this precinct.
Where the Precinct Sits
Everything below lies at Luddenham, within a few kilometres of the airport, along Elizabeth Drive or Luddenham Road.
Where the sites sit
WEST — proposed Outer Sydney Orbital corridor
Schematic layout — relative positions only, not to scale.
View Luddenham on Google Maps to see the sites against Elizabeth Drive, The Northern Road and the airport boundary.
Google Maps shows the roads but not the precinct boundary or the zone. The NSW Planning Spatial Viewer carries both.
PROJECT 1 — $139 Million Estate at 2289–2311 Elizabeth Drive
STATUS: APPROVED 15 APRIL 2025 — SSD-48438209
Aware Real Estate owns the site and develops it with Barings. The NSW Department of Planning, Housing and Infrastructure consented on 15 April 2025.
The 19.4 hectare estate at 2289 to 2311 Elizabeth Drive delivers 63,537 square metres of gross floor area across seven warehouse and distribution buildings on three lots.
Warehousing runs from 1,000 to 30,000 square metres, alongside a cafe, ancillary offices, a new road network, carparking and heavy vehicle hardstand.
Nettleton Tribe designed the estate. It sits near the junction of The Northern Road and Elizabeth Drive, on the airport’s north-western side.
The NSW Government put ongoing employment at 250 roles. Construction job figures varied in reporting, from 390 to more than 600.
Construction began in mid-2025 and the first warehouse is due to open in December 2026.
The state described it as one of the first estates approved in the Aerotropolis, within a private development pipeline it valued at $14 billion, which it expects to create 120,000 jobs across the wider airport catchment.
PROJECT 2 — Celestino’s 52.5 Hectares at 121 Willmington Road
STATUS: STATE SIGNIFICANT APPLICATION LODGED FOR STAGE 1
Celestino holds a 52.5 hectare agribusiness-zoned site and has lodged a state significant application for the first stage of its Park Road development.
Stage 1 covers 20.6 hectares in the northern portion of the holding at 121 Willmington Road, Luddenham.
The developer describes the site as built for food production, fresh-goods logistics, air-freight access and supply chain uses.
That description matches the zoning intent more closely than the warehouse estate does, which makes this the better test of whether agribusiness tenants actually arrive.
Roughly 32 hectares of the holding sit outside Stage 1. No application covered them at the time of writing.
PROJECT 3 — Sydney Science Park, the Site That Predates the Framework
STATUS: FIRST STATE SIGNIFICANT APPLICATION LODGED, MARCH 2026
Sydney Science Park covers 287 hectares at 565 to 609 Luddenham Road, and Celestino has lodged its first state significant application.
The site carries its own history. Penrith City Council rezoned it in 2016 from RU2 Rural Landscape to part B7 Business Park, part B4 Mixed Use and RE1 Public Recreation.
That rezoning predates the Western Sydney Aerotropolis planning policy, which commenced on 1 October 2020, by four years.
The consequence is that this holding sits inside the broader Aerotropolis but under controls written before the Aerotropolis framework existed.
Celestino has described a $5 billion project with 3,400 homes, a science and technology focused school, a town centre and research facilities.
The dwelling count is capped at 3,400, which makes it the only significant residential component anywhere near this part of the Aerotropolis.
Anyone comparing this site with its neighbours should read the Penrith instrument, not the Aerotropolis policy.
PROJECT 4 — The Block That Sold for 21 Times Its Price
STATUS: SOLD APRIL 2019, LAND SINCE REZONED
Investors bought 12.16 hectares at 812 to 844 Luddenham Road for $825,000 in 2009.
The parcel sold for $17.75 million in April 2019, more than 21 times what the vendors had paid a decade earlier, on Domain Group data.
CBRE handled the sale and reported close to 100 enquiries from educational institutions, institutional groups and high-net-worth buyers.
The appeal was position. The site sits about two kilometres from the airport and near the future M9 and M12 interchange.
At the time, agents expected rezoning to employment land within two or three years. The Agribusiness Precinct package landed in March 2022.
The block also adjoins the 344 hectare holding a consortium had planned as Northern Gateway City, a scheme that never proceeded.
The Land Price Story Behind the Precinct
The rezoning did not create value on the day it was gazetted. Buyers had already priced it in years earlier.
What one Luddenham block did
Sources: Domain Group sale data, NSW Planning Portal, Penrith City Council records.
The 2019 sale is seven years old and does not describe current values. It does show when the repricing happened, which is the useful part.
Land bought as rural in 2009 was trading at employment-land expectations by 2019, a pattern also visible in Austral, three years before the planning package confirmed them.
That sequence explains why so little of the precinct changed hands after 2022. The buyers were already in place.
What Agribusiness Zoning Actually Permits
The name misleads people. The zone targets food handling and freight rather than farming, and the first approval reflects that.
| Use | In the precinct intent |
|---|---|
| Integrated logistics | Yes, and the first approval is exactly this |
| Air freight handling | Yes, the precinct fronts the airport |
| Intensive production | Yes, including glasshouse and controlled environment growing |
| Food innovation and processing | Yes |
| Fresh produce and value-added food | Yes |
| Pharmaceuticals | Named in the precinct intent |
| Broadacre farming | Not the purpose — the zone targets processing and freight, not paddocks |
| Housing | No, except at Sydney Science Park under its own 2016 controls |
Intensive production covers controlled environment growing, which is closer to a glasshouse operation than to broadacre cropping.
Pharmaceuticals appear in the precinct intent alongside food, which widens the tenant pool well beyond agriculture.
No part of the zone provides for housing. The only dwellings anywhere nearby sit at Sydney Science Park under its separate 2016 controls, unlike Edmondson Park or Leppington.
The Stormwater Charge Is Not Registered Yet
Development here carries a regional stormwater contribution, and the charge for this precinct was still moving through registration.
Sydney Water finalised the integrated scheme for the remaining Aerotropolis precincts in March 2026, and reported tracking toward registration in the third quarter of 2026.
Until a Development Servicing Plan is registered, applicants lodge a bond, usually a bank guarantee, rather than paying the charge.
The Mamre Road scheme set the method, and IPART landed that charge at about $850,000 a hectare in 2023-24 dollars.
The Agribusiness figure is not the Mamre Road figure. They are separate schemes with separate registrations.
Why the Airport Edge Matters Here
Freight economics explain the tenant mix better than the zoning name does, and they explain why warehousing arrived first.
Perishable freight pays for proximity, as does the air cargo operation itself. Every kilometre between a packing facility and an air cargo terminal costs time the produce does not have.
That is the argument for putting food handling on the airport’s western edge rather than further out along the motorway network.
The proposed Outer Sydney Orbital frames the precinct on its western side, which would give tenants a second freight route away from Elizabeth Drive.
Neither the orbital nor the full local road network is built. Until they are, Elizabeth Drive and Luddenham Road carry everything.
The Property Council has publicly pressed for action on Luddenham Road specifically, arguing it is the constraint holding back the emerging precincts.
Rossmore, at the southern end, sits closer to Bringelly and is planned as mixed-living rather than employment land, which marks the edge of the industrial catchment.
How to Check a Specific Site
Three public sources answer most questions about a parcel here, and each is maintained by the body that holds the record.
The NSW Planning Spatial Viewer returns the zone and the applicable controls for any address, which is the only way to confirm whether a site is Agribusiness-zoned.
The major projects register publishes the application number, assessment type, exhibition dates and current stage for every state significant proposal.
Penrith City Council’s application tracker covers anything the council determines, including work on the Sydney Science Park land.
For stormwater, Sydney Water issues a Notice of Requirements with the estimated contribution when an applicant seeks a Section 73 certificate.
What Has Not Been Confirmed
Most of this precinct exists as zoning rather than as buildings, and the article separates the two deliberately.
Approved or on the record
63,537 square metres at Elizabeth Drive, consented April 2025
Construction under way since mid-2025
Sydney Science Park rezoned in 2016
Precinct planning package finalised March 2022
Not settled
Celestino Stage 1 at Willmington Road, lodged only
The remaining 32 hectares of that holding
Sydney Science Park’s first building
The stormwater charge, not yet registered
Celestino’s Stage 1 sits at lodgement. No determination had been published, and the remaining 32 hectares carry no application.
Sydney Science Park has lodged its first building application after a decade of planning, so nothing there is built.
Job figures for the precinct come from planning documents, not from leases. The 5,000-plus target runs to 2036.
Reporting on construction jobs at the Elizabeth Drive estate ranged from 390 to more than 600, and this article gives both.
Agribusiness Precinct: Status and Timing
| Site | Scale | Value | Stage | Decided by |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2289–2311 Elizabeth Drive | 63,537 sq m | $139 million | Approved 15 Apr 2025 | NSW Government |
| 121 Willmington Road, Stage 1 | 20.6 ha | — | Lodged | Department of Planning |
| 565–609 Luddenham Road | 287 ha, 3,400 homes | $5 billion | First application lodged | Penrith controls, state assessment |
| 812–844 Luddenham Road | 12.16 ha | $17.75 million (2019) | Sold, since rezoned | Not applicable |
Summary
The Agribusiness Precinct has one substantial approval, one lodged application, one long-planned science park and a land market that repriced years ago.
The zoning name promises farming and the first consent delivered 63,537 square metres of warehousing, which tells you what the market wants here.
Celestino’s Willmington Road application is the better test, because it describes food production and fresh-goods logistics rather than general storage.
Anyone tracking a specific parcel should check whether it sits under the Aerotropolis policy or, like Sydney Science Park, under older council controls.
Where is the Agribusiness Precinct?
It runs along the western edge of Western Sydney International Airport at Luddenham and Rossmore, framed by the proposed Outer Sydney Orbital, with access from Luddenham Road and Elizabeth Drive.
What is being built in the Agribusiness Precinct?
The largest approval is a $139 million warehouse estate of 63,537 square metres at 2289 to 2311 Elizabeth Drive, consented in April 2025. Celestino has lodged an application for 20.6 hectares at Willmington Road.
What can you build on Agribusiness-zoned land?
The precinct intent covers integrated logistics, air freight, intensive production, food innovation, fresh produce, value-added food and pharmaceuticals. It does not provide for housing.
When was the Agribusiness Precinct rezoned?
The planning package was finalised in March 2022, under the Western Sydney Aerotropolis policy that commenced on 1 October 2020.
This article is general information only and is not financial, legal or planning advice. See the Disclaimer for details.
