The bullish luxury apartment market in Sydney’s Double Bay has encouraged a Chinese property developer to pay $45 million for a two-level shopping arcade on Cross Street.

The SJD Group, headed up by Shanghai property developer Shi Jiandong, is widely tipped as the buyer, amid expectations the site will be redeveloped into high-end apartments.

SJD Group bought the site next door last December for $54.6 million, from Rich-Listers the Roche family, with a development application already in place for a six-level complex with retail outlets and approval for 34 apartments.

Updated council records shows that DA is now for 31 apartments.

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Records show the more recent purchase by SJD Group, at 28-34 Cross Street, was from the wealthy dry cleaning business owning Eisman family, who held the property in a company name.

Sources say the deal worth about $45 million was negotiated by Matt Pontey, of Colliers International, and his father Craig Pontey, who heads up Ray White Double Bay. Neither agent was contactable before publication.

Double Bay’s apartment market has proved one of the most bullish in the eastern suburbs in recent years as empty nesters vie for limited luxury apartments in the east’s harbourfront suburbs.

A Double Bay apartment record was set in 2014 at $8.9 million when Lynette Harvey, former wife of retail billionaire Gerry Harvey and a shareholder in Harvey Norman, bought the Ercole Palazzetti-designed penthouse atop the Chancellor building.

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