Construction begins on Adelaide's $350m Morphettville racecourse redevelopment

HouGarden Australia, 22 September — The project is a joint undertaking between the South Australian Jockey Club, which owns the heritage sporting complex, private residential developer Villawood Properties, and Hostplus, an Australian industry superannuation fund. The A$350 million figure represents the total investment across the entire Morphettville redevelopment, not The Quarter alone.

The Quarter itself will comprise 209 houses and low-rise apartments, ranging in height from two to three storeys. The broader project will transform the racecourse precinct into a mixed-use destination combining luxury residential, commercial and community spaces.

Villawood SA General Manager Ben Moore described The Quarter as an 'extraordinary' part of Morphettville's reinvention. 'It is a truly diverse community offering everything from luxury trackside terrace homes through to magnificent architect-designed affordable homes which first home buyers just love,' he said.

Moore said the project represented a rare opportunity that the market had been signalling was long overdue. 'It is a bespoke, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that the market is telling us South Australians have been desperately waiting for,' he said.

The Quarter includes trackside three-storey homes with rooftop gardens alongside more affordable architect-designed dwellings within the same development. Moore said the mix brought a level of sophistication not previously seen in the area. 'The beauty of it is that it's a fully South Australian effort, from the developers to the architects and partners in an iconic project that will ultimately benefit a great many South Australians,' he said.

The Morphettville Racecourse sits within the City of Marion, a local government area in Adelaide's southern suburbs. The redevelopment is supported by government infrastructure and public transport upgrades in the surrounding area, which are intended to reinforce the precinct's role as a sporting and entertainment hub.

Villawood Properties entered the South Australian market in 2021 and has since grown to become the state's largest private residential developer. Across its South Australian operations, the company is on track to deliver approximately 5,000 lots over the next decade, with a combined value of around A$6 billion. Those figures cover Villawood's entire SA pipeline and are not specific to the Morphettville project.

For property observers outside Australia, the Morphettville project illustrates a model increasingly seen at Australian racecourse sites: a major sporting landowner partnering with a private developer and institutional capital — in this case a superannuation fund — to unlock underutilised land for mixed residential and community use, while retaining the venue's core sporting function.