Ex-Aesop HQ earmarked for apartments

The complex will contain 23 dwellings over eight floors.

Urban is proposing to replace Fitzroy’s recently vacated Aesop headquarters with an eight storey apartment building topped with a 148 square metre resident-only rooftop entertainment area.

The local developer paid $7.85 million for the 1960s warehouse-converted-office, 25 Smith Street, a year ago.

The proposal looking east from Little Victoria Street.

At the north west corner of Little Victoria St, the 825 sqm Commercial 1 zoned site also fronts Little Smith.

The application seeks to build 23 dwellings in a Clare Cousins designed complex set back at the third level.

Fifteen units will contain three bedrooms.

A 186 sqm ground floor space will be configured as a café/restaurant, expected to trade between 7am-11pm.

There would also be a two level basement car park with 37 bays (story continues below).

“Each of the dwellings offers generous…living with a view to a significant proportion of residents being owner occupiers,” the applicant said.

The land is affected by a Design and Development Overlay – still to be approved by the planning minster – which encourages buildings of between six to 10 floors.

It is opposite Morry Schwartz’s British Crown Hotel, which the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal recently rejected be extended to become an eight storey office.

Further north – at 411-421 Smith St – Chapter Group last quarter won permission to replace the city’s flagship Kathmandu outlet with a nine level residential building.

Aesop relocated to 54 Wellington St, Collingwood.

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Marc Pallisco

A former property analyst and print journalist, Marc is the publisher of realestatesource.com.au.