At least three property heavyweights - Lend Lease, Mirvac and Stockland - are in the running for one of Australia's largest but most difficult urban renewal projects - the creation of the $1.1billion Green Square town centre in Sydney. The revitalisation of the ageing industrial suburbs of South Sydney has been on the agenda for more than 10 years, but so far only boom time apartments have emerged, without shopping or employment or community facilities. The hope-for-heart of Green Square, the 20 hectare town centre, remains desolate car yards and decaying industrial buildings around the Green Square railway station. Earlier this year Landcom and the Sydney City Council called for expressions of interest in the creation of just under a third of the town centre - a project that could make or break the entire South Sydney revitalisation. The six hectare site could be developed to about 200,000 sq m of new space - perhaps 1100 apartments, 60,000 sq m of office space and 12,000 sq m of retailing, as well as extensive open plazas. Eleven parties submitted expressions of interest and Landcom has short listed six to participate in an 'invitation to tender'. Landcom project director Paul Anderson said all those short-listed had demonstrated their capacity to undertake a project of that size and complexity. A preferred tenderer was expected to be selected by mid 2008. "We were pleased at the strong interest shown", Mr Anderson said. "The airport-to-CBD corridor is shaping to be a stand out location for investment. Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore said the town centre project promised to be "a world class residential, commercial and cultural hub, a place where new benchmarks are set in urban design and public domain spaces, in architecture, facilities and environmental planning". "This is an opportunity to put the green back into Green Square - a centre that will add to the vitality and mix of our City of Villages with its own unique character as our first eco-village".