Channel Seven South Melbourne Studios Set For Apartment Makeover

Game show host Andrew O’Keefe will need to find himself a new “deal-a-drome”, after the developer which bought Channel 7’s outgoing South Melbourne studios late last year signalled it wants to build apartments on the site and soon.

Fridcorp managing director Paul Fridman confirmed he wants to start marketing apartments on the Wells Street site as early as next month. Fridcorp beat a throng of residential developers to snare the studios for about $15 million late last year, ahead of Channel 7’s relocation to new studios at Docklands.

Channel 7 has leased the property from Sydney-based developer St Hilliers, which it sold the site to for $7.5 million in September 2003.

In a show of the times, rival network Channel 9 has also recently sold its inner-city studios in Richmond to residential developers. The now famous Bendigo Street studio, where Graeme Kennedy let loose his famous “faark” crow-call, is set to be converted into apartments and townhouses.

Coincidentally, networks 7 and 9 moved into their respective South Melbourne and Richmond studios at about the same time in 1956. Both will relocate from their existing inner-city sites, to Docklands, later this year.

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