Australian Education Union Spends $16 Million on Neighbouring Abbotsford Office
Its purchase of the neighbouring 126 Trenerry Crescent site for almost $16 million in March, gives the AEU a riverside supersite speculated to be worth $30 million in the current market.
The unique parcel abuts parkland overlooking Dights Falls and is at a sharp bend in the road where Trenerry Crescent meets a wall that is the Punt Road offramp of the Eastern Freeway.
An AEU spokesman said it eventually plans to relocate staff to a new office at #126 once leases and associated options in place in that building, which was sold by Kane Constructions, expire.
Earlier this week, the new owners of a site at 86 Trenerry Crescent, which abuts the AEU’s compound to the south, unveiled plans for a 10-level, 109-unit residential tower.
The proposed complex is one of several high density buildings earmarked to replace low-rise commercial buildings on Abbotsford’s Yarra River banks.
Last year – and despite an objection from the Stonnington City Council – the Yarra City Council and the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal approved a $250 million redevelopment of the former Honeywell office building site, opposite Victoria Gardens.
That project, Eden, will include 586 flats in several towers, the tallest rising 11 levels.
Plans have also been mooted for a 17-level tower at another site in Johnston Street.
All proposed buildings are substantially lower than commission flat towers in neighbouring Collingwood, Fitzroy and Richmond, which rise more than 20 levels.