The short answer
A make good in Macquarie Park usually means handing back a large business-park office floor or a whole building in the condition your lease sets. Beyond partitions, ceilings and carpet, it often includes removing server rooms and their cooling, laboratory fit-out, building-top and pylon signage, and tenant car-park markings. Labs need a clean decommissioning plan before strip-out. Start early, as these are big jobs.
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Key takeaways
- 01Macquarie Park floors are often large and many tenants lease whole buildings, so a make good can include the roof, facade signage and car park, not just the office.
- 02Server rooms, supplementary air-conditioning, raised floors and UPS systems are common tenant works here. Check which the lease makes you remove.
- 03Laboratories, clean rooms and fume cupboards need to be decommissioned and cleaned before any strip-out. Ask the landlord what evidence they want.
- 04Removing building-top signage usually needs a crane, traffic planning and sometimes council involvement. Price it separately.
- 05Big floors mean big decisions. Ask the landlord early whether they want your fit-out kept for the next tenant, and get any agreement in writing.
Macquarie Park, in the City of Ryde, is a large business park built around Macquarie University and Macquarie Centre and served by the Metro at Macquarie Park, Macquarie University and North Ryde stations. Along Waterloo Road, Talavera Road, Lane Cove Road and Epping Road, the buildings are mostly low- and mid-rise office campuses with large floorplates, car parks and building-top signage. Many house technology, pharmaceutical, medical-device and telecommunications companies. That mix shapes the make good: bigger floors, more specialist rooms and more outside the four walls of the office.
General information only, not legal advice. Your lease sets your obligations. Speak to a property lawyer about your own lease.
What does make good mean for a Macquarie Park lease?
Make good is a lease term, not a standard set by NSW law. The NSW Small Business Commission's Retail Tenancy Guide describes it as returning premises to the condition they were first built in, their condition at the start of the lease, "or some other condition as specified in the lease". Most business-park office leases are not retail leases, so the lease and general law decide the details.
Read the make-good clause together with the alterations clause, any signage licence, any car-park licence, and the start-of-lease condition report. On a whole-building lease, also check whether you agreed to maintain plant such as air-conditioning or lifts. That can change what "handing back in good repair" means.
What does a business-park make good usually involve?
| Area | What it often involves |
|---|---|
| Office floors | Removing partitions, meeting rooms, kitchens and joinery; reinstating base-building ceiling grid, tiles and lights; carpet and paint |
| Server and comms rooms | Removing raised floors, supplementary cooling units, UPS and batteries, gas fire suppression and cabling back to the riser |
| Laboratories and clean rooms | Decommissioning and cleaning first, then removing benches, fume cupboards, specialist gases and drainage |
| Building signage | Removing building-top, facade and pylon signs, repairing fixings and making good the cladding |
| Car park and grounds | Removing tenant line marking and bay numbers, boom gates or access systems you added, and EV chargers if the lease requires |
| End-of-trip and amenities | Removing showers, lockers or kitchens you added, or leaving them if the landlord agrees |
Each item should link back to a clause or a written request from the landlord. If a landlord's list asks for more than your lease does, you can question it.
What about laboratories and specialist rooms?
Labs and clean rooms need extra planning. Before strip-out, the space usually needs to be decommissioned: chemicals, biological materials and samples removed, benches, fume cupboards, ducts and drains cleaned, and records kept of what was done. Your lease may also set out what the landlord expects at handover. Ask the landlord early what evidence they want, and use specialists for hazardous materials. The physical strip-out comes after.
Server rooms bring their own issues. Gas fire suppression systems, refrigeration in cooling units and UPS batteries should be removed by people licensed or qualified for that work. Under NSW rules, any electrical wiring work needs a licensed electrician.
What safety checks apply?
- Asbestos. SafeWork NSW says workplaces built before 31 December 2003 need an asbestos register. Some Macquarie Park buildings were built before that date. Ask for the register before ceilings, floor coverings or wall linings are removed. Any friable asbestos, or more than 10 m² of non-friable asbestos, must be removed by a licensed removalist.
- Signage and heights. Building-top signs mean work at height, usually with a crane. Ask whether the landlord's roof-access rules or a City of Ryde approval apply, and expect a traffic plan if a crane goes on the street.
- Live buildings. If other tenants share your building, noisy work may be limited to set hours. Ask contractors to show which hours they have priced.
Should I leave my fit-out for the next tenant?
On large floors, this is often the biggest decision. Some landlords prefer a good, recent fit-out left in place because it helps them re-lease the floor faster. Others want it gone. Ask early, and only rely on a written agreement listing what stays. If you altered the building without written consent, get legal advice. In Tabcorp Holdings v Bowen Investments [2009] HCA 8, the High Court allowed a landlord to recover the full cost of reinstating unapproved works.
How long does a Macquarie Park make good take?
Larger floors and specialist rooms take longer to plan and complete. For a whole floor or building, start six to twelve months before your lease ends. That leaves time to agree the scope, decommission labs or server rooms, book cranes for signage, and get quotes on one written scope. Our make good timeline sets out the steps.
How much will it cost?
There is no reliable public make-good rate for business-park offices, and labs, server rooms and signage vary too much to average. The honest route is a written scope and itemised quotes. Our make good cost guide explains what drives the price, and cash in lieu of make good explains how to compare a landlord's cash request against real quotes.
How MAKE GREAT helps Macquarie Park tenants
- Analyse my lease: upload your lease and our lease check summarises the make-good, alterations, signage and security clauses in plain English. It is preliminary and not legal advice. A person on our team reviews it, and a contractor checks the site before quoting.
- Get my make-good quotes: we turn your lease, floor plans and photos into one written brief and invite contractors who have passed our checks to quote on the same scope.
- You choose and contract directly with the contractor. MAKE GREAT is a marketplace, not a contractor. It is free for tenants: if you hire a contractor through us, they pay us a referral fee. Nobody can pay to rank higher.
Nearby: Chatswood and North Sydney. See also office make good in Sydney and lease reinstatement.
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Frequently asked questions
What does a Macquarie Park office make good usually include?
Often removing partitions, meeting rooms, kitchens and joinery, reinstating base-building ceilings and lights, removing extra power and data cabling, repainting and replacing or cleaning carpet. Business-park tenants also often have server rooms, raised floors, supplementary air-conditioning, signage and car-park markings to deal with. Your lease decides which of these you must do.
Do I have to remove my server room and its air-conditioning?
If the lease requires you to remove tenant works, a server room you installed, with its raised floor, extra cooling units, fire suppression and UPS, is usually included. Some landlords want supplementary cooling left in place. Ask in writing. Electrical and refrigeration work must be done by appropriately licensed trades.
How do we hand back a laboratory at the end of the lease?
Usually by decommissioning it first: removing chemicals and samples, cleaning and decontaminating benches, fume cupboards and drains, and keeping records of what was done. Then the physical strip-out follows. Ask the landlord what records they want before sign-off, and use specialists for hazardous materials.
Who removes the signage on top of the building?
The tenant, if the lease or signage licence says so, which is common. Building-top and pylon signs often need a crane, traffic and pedestrian management, and the landlord's approval for roof access. Ask your landlord and the City of Ryde whether any approval applies, and ask contractors to price signage as a separate item.
Can I pay the landlord instead of doing the make good?
Often, if the landlord agrees. The NSW Small Business Commission notes that tenants often agree to pay the landlord in lieu of doing the works. On a large floor the amount can be significant, so get an independent itemised quote first and put any agreement in writing.
Sources
Primary sources we checked when writing this page. Laws and guidance change, so check the current version.
- 1.NSW Small Business Commission, NSW Retail Tenancy Guide (January 2024) (opens in a new tab)
- 2.SafeWork NSW, Asbestos (opens in a new tab)
- 3.NSW Government, Electrical licences (opens in a new tab)
- 4.High Court of Australia, Tabcorp Holdings Ltd v Bowen Investments Pty Ltd [2009] HCA 8 (opens in a new tab)
- 5.City of Ryde (opens in a new tab)