News Victoria 

Victorian State Government Reaps $16 Million From Education Sites

AS TEACHERS and the cashed-up education unions bully for more pay, the cash-strapped Baillieu government has been forced to sell two prime assets including the landmark former Kangan TAFE in Gwynne Street Richmond, expected to one day make way for a  $200-million plus mixed use village.

In a busy week for school sales and listings, the state has reaped $9.25 million for the 7637 square metre inner-east site which will cease operating as a Kangan next March.

The Business 1 zoned property (aerial pic, right) is heralded as the largest commercial development site to sell in Melbourne this year measured by value – but it’s estimated the property could have been worth more than $20 million should it have sold with a more flexible zoning allowing for residential redevelopment.

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Victoria 

Northcote Aged Care Facility to be Sold

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ANOTHER religious based group is disposing a prime located suburban asset, which is likely to be redeveloped as flats.

This time, in Northcote, Churches of Christ Community Care is selling the former Fred Combridge House aged facility at 1A Campbell Grove, and high on Ruckers Hill (aerial image, right).

The former 30-bed facility is spread across a 2712 square metre site, and, according to Fitzroys selling agents Charles Emmett and Geoff Emmett, is expected to arouse developer interest and sell for between $5 million – $5.5 million, reflecting a rate per square metre of land, of approximately $1850 – $2000.

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Victoria 

Catholic Leadership Centre to Start Construction, East Melbourne

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COMMUTERS stuck at the congested intersection best dubbed a traffic sewer will be able to watch a $25 million redevelopment of a prominent East Melbourne church site.

The Catholic Leadership Centre will be developed within buildings, and on surplus land surrounding the prominent Celtic Church on the south-west corner of Hoddle and Victoria streets – about three blocks away from the Fitzroy Gardens, and five blocks from the MCG.

The centre will include a new short term accommodation complex for 45 people, a dining room for 400, and a basement car park with 59 bays. Existing heritage buildings will be refurbished, while a glazed roof walkway will be developed through the spine of the complex.

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Victoria 

17-Level Apartment Tower Mooted Near Collingwood’s Victoria Park Stadium

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SOON, Melbourne’s eyesore commission flat towers might not be the tallest buildings within their suburbs.

Far from being daunted by new planning minister Matthew Guy shredding of the Brumby government’s problematic Melbourne 2030 planning policy (which he argued in Opposition treated metropolitan Melbourne like one giant development zone), residential developers are still proposing big, bold buildings. This is despite Melbourne planning being a relative state of limbo until a new planning strategy is formulated.

This time, in Magpie land and near the Victoria Park stadium (pictured) and train station, a proposal has been lodged to build a 204-unit residential village with ground floor shops and a 17-level tower.

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Victoria 

Federal Government’s Beleagured NRAS Suffers Another Setback

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THE federal government’s ailing National Rental Affordability Scheme has suffered a convenient setback.

The $623 million initiative – introduced by Kevin Rudd in 2008, and then part-cut by Julia Gillard and Wayne Swan in recent budgets – has lost another private sector backer which was to have provided 255 affordable housing units in Coburg.

Developer Hamton, with joint venture partner Macquarie Real Estate Investment Equity Fund, has quietly rescheduled the start date of its contentious Coburg High School redevelopment – Circa (artist impression, above).

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Victoria 

One in Seven Dwellings Within City of Yarra Now Public Housing

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FOURTEEN per cent, or one in seven dwellings within the City of Yarra council zone is now allocated as public housing.

According to council, there are 5039 public homes out of 35,960 dwellings within the council area – which encapsulates inner-city suburbs of Abbotsford, Carlton North, Collingwood and Clifton Hill.

This compares to mid-2006, when 4923 dwellings (or 13 per cent of homes) were allocated as public housing.

The number of social dwellings is set to surge within the council area – and throughout metropolitan Melbourne and Victoria – according to agents, architects, builders and planners who agree a commission flat building-boom is starting.

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Victoria 

Melbourne’s Riverside About to Undergo Apartment Building Boom

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RIVERSIDE Kew and Hawthorn residents share a phenomenon with Williamstown and Footscray residents – whereby eyesore factories on prime waterfront sites are tolerated because “they are better than flats”.

While remediation may prevent redevelopment of some western suburb industrial sites, however, plans are advanced to build new residential villages on former commercial blocks along the Yarra River, and particularly in Abbotsford.

Macquarie Capital is the latest developer to capitalise on the imminent riverside building boom, offering for sale a 5264 square metre block at 16 Flockhart Street with a permit for a 310 unit skyscraper village within a 12-storey complex (pictured, right).

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Victoria 

Historic Avalon Mansion Demolished

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REGULAR Grand Prix racegoers may notice the historic and former heritage-protected Avalon mansion, near the 13th turn at the bottom of Albert Park Lake, in Melbourne, has just been demolished.

Built in 1903, and on a massive 2323 square metre block at 70 Queens Road, Avalon was designed by prominent architect William Pitt, who also penned the Princess Theatre and Olderfleet buildings, in town, and the Denton Hat Mill building, in Abbotsford.

Avalon (pictured, right) was one of the few mansions dotted within the wider St Kilda Road precinct that survived a commercial office building boom that intensified in the 1980s, but troughed by the 1990s.

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Buy Invest News 

Are Melbourne Apartments Still a Safe Investment?

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So now what?

After nine years adopting the previous state government’s hugely contentious Melbourne 2030 planning policy – the city’s development landscape is set to change, and apartments may be on the nose.

In one of its first official acts – and as it promised to do before the November 21 election – the Baillieu government has destroyed Labor government planning laws facilitating higher density redevelopment (ie, over three storeys) along all public transport nodes.

In Opposition, Planning Minister Matthew Guy said Melbourne risked becoming dysfunctional, and losing its character permanently, unless suburban apartment construction was curbed.

In power, Mr Guy has committed to a two year audit and consultation program to determine a new model of metropolitan planning.

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Victoria 

Mirvac Signs STA Travel to Southbank Office

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FOR the moment, residents in Southbank’s most exclusive skyscrapers can relax knowing their million dollar city views are preserved.

Sydney-based property giant Mirvac has signed tour enterprise STA Travel to a nine-year lease at a low rise office within a riverfront compound at Riverside Quay.

The Mirvac offices are on blue ribbon parcels of land abutting the Yarra River. At the moment the buildings are limited by a height restriction, however several long standing zonings have been removed, in the pro-development era that has ensued since the problematic Melbourne 2030 policy.

Inevitable high rise redevelopment of these Mirvac sites down the track will block postcard views currently enjoyed by residents at Eureka, Freshwater Place and other skyscrapers nearby.

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287 Station Street
Victoria 

Office of Housing Buys Former Box Hill Aged Care Facility

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287 Station StreetTHE Office of Housing has paid close to $4 million for a disused aged care facility in Box Hill.

Dwellings on the 2480 square metre site, opposite the Box Hill Tennis Club and near the Surrey Hills and Burwood suburb borders, are expected to be refurbished before being made available to public housing tenants.

The purchase continues a trend of the Federal Government, and associated public housing service providers snapping up prevalent development sites all around Melbourne and Victoria.

Some of the biggest public housing projects are currently under construction in Abbotsford, Ashwood, Carlton, Ringwood and Wonthaggi.

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422 Little Collins Street
News Victoria 

Becton lists 422 Little Collins St

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422 Little Collins StreetDEVELOPER and fund manager Becton is still in a selling mood.

This time, the East Melbourne-based group is offloading a Little Collins Street office building it bought from Vicland for $22.2 million in September 2006.

The 422 Little Collins Street office is expected to fetch about $17.5 million this time around, reflecting a yield of about 10 per cent based on the assets approximate annual income of $1.75 million.

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Melbourne Central
Victoria 

NBN Co to Have Neighbours in Luxury Melbourne Skyscraper

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Melbourne CentralSTAFF of the Federal Government’s divisive $43 billion National Broadband Network program – which earlier this year leased luxury offices in one of Melbourne’s few “Premium” grade office buildings – will soon have new neighbours.

ME Bank and Allianz Insurance have leased a combined 16,439 square metres at the landmark Melbourne Central tower, reportedly paying a rental of between $400 and $420 per square metre, per annum.

NBN Co is understood to be paying more than $500 per square, per annum for its space, in a deal reported by BusinessDay, earlier this year.

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Victoria 

Salta Buys Residential Development Site in Congested Inner-City Precinct

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IN PEAK hour, in a car and behind the crammed trams – the retail strip that is Victoria Street, where Richmond meets Abbotsford can be one of the most congested roads in Melbourne to drive through.

And traffic is expected to move a bit slower in coming years, as more residents move to Victoria Street, in complexes being developed on the former Going Going Gone site, the Honeywell office site, and another property opposite the Victoria Gardens Shopping Centre, on the south-west corner of Burnley Street.

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Victoria 

Charter Hall Starts Marketing Townhouses at Former Nylex Mentone Site

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CHARTER Hall is set to start building a $75 million housing estate on part of Nylex’s former industrial products manufacturing and distribution complex in Mentone, a site which it has snapped up in stages over the past four years.

In a trend that is seeing interstate builders increasingly look to Melbourne’s outer suburbs for opportunity, the Sydney-based developer plans to build 119 townhouses on the 3.3 hectare site at the south-west corner of Warrigal Road and Oak Avenue.

Construction of the project, to be known as Aquilo, is set to start within weeks. Marketing of the first townhouses, priced from just under half a million each, commences today.

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Victoria 

Richmond’s Fields Knitting Mills Factory to be Redeveloped into $60 Million Apartment Complex

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RICHMOND’s former Fields Knitting Mills factory, in Lord Street, Melbourne, is set to be redeveloped into a $60 million, six-level apartment complex.

Developer W Property Group said 85 per cent of the 88 units available in the Cirque complex have sold – enough to satisfy the bank’s tight funding requirements, and get construction started by July.

Oliver Hume Real Estate marketing agent Cameron Clarke said the oversized apartment shells were a contributing factor to Cirque’s success.

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Shrine of Remembrance
Victoria 

Skyscrapers to Sprout From Two Sites Around Melbourne’s Shrine of Remembrance

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Shrine of RemembranceTWO major development sites around the Shrine of Remembrance have sold, in deals expected to see low rise office buildings replaced with skyscraper apartment towers, with a potential end value of around $250 million.

In the biggest deal, an Asia-based developer is believed to have paid about $15.5 million for a 2274 square metre site at 35 Albert Road.

A 3096 square metre office building at the address is expected to be replaced with an apartment tower, which some speculate could soar higher than 30 levels and have an end value of about $130 million.

Meanwhile across the road, boutique developer Hamton has made one of its biggest forays into the high-density residential sector.

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Victoria 

Australand to Sell Riverfront Site Near Victoria Park Stadium

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AUSTRALAND is selling a 4000 square metre inner-city development site, wedged between Collingwood Football Club’s Victoria Park stadium, and the Yarra River.

The Abbotsford property at 80 – 110 Trenerry Crescent, will be sold with a permit for a nine-level residential building, with 94 units.

Australand has already developed townhouses on part of the site, which is near Dights Falls, and next to the prominent Australian Education Union Victorian Branch offices.

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Victoria 

JG King, Massi, Buy Into $80 Million Clifton Hill Housing Estate

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FOLKESTONE and AMP Capital Investors have sold part of a major $80 million residential development in Clifton Hill.

A joint venture consortium including major suburban home builder JG King Homes, and Massi Property Solutions, have paid an undisclosed sum for a major piece of the Clifton Hill site, at the corner of Noone and East Grey streets, near the northern fence of the Eastern Freeway.

The site, formerly occupied by Spicers and used as a clothing dye factory, was part of a much larger property acquired by Folkestone and AMP for a speculated $14 million in June 2007.

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Victoria 

Salta to Start Construction at Derelict Richmond Corner at Last

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CONSTRUCTION of a new apartment tower at the busy intersection of Burnley and Victoria streets, in Richmond, is set to start this year, after developer Salta achieved enough apartment pre-sales to get its $100 million aplacetolive project out of the ground.

Marketing of Sienna, the second of four apartment building within the aplacetolive project, is now underway. Almost all of the 88 units in the first building, Jade, have sold.

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Beacon Cove, Port Melbourne
Articles 

Melbourne’s Most Reinvented Suburbs

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Beacon Cove, Port MelbourneONE has to wonder what “great Australian dream” some Melburnians were being sold last century.

Until recently – the 1980s and 1990s for most inner-city areas – owning an inner-city terrace was not necessarily a big deal. More often than not, according to veteran agents, they were used as “stepping stone” investments that could be paid off in a few years and sold on the basis of being “more attractive than renting”.

Buyers – particularly immigrants from Italy and Greece – bought in Richmond, North Fitzroy or Northcote, in order to save a deposit to build new, larger homes in Avondale Heights, Glenroy or – if they invested well – Doncaster.

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Pentridge Prison, Coburg
Articles 

Breathing New Life Into Melbourne’s Landmark Sites

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Pentridge Prison, CoburgTHIRTY years ago a three-bedroom house in Thomastown cost more than a three-bedroom house in Fitzroy – that’s testament to how much Melbourne’s attitude to housing has changed.

In the 1970s, to live in Collingwood, Port Melbourne or Yarraville meant to be entrenched in Melbourne’s working class. Houses could languish on the market for months – unsellable, unrentable and not worth fixing up.

Today, to own properties in these and many other particularly inner-city suburbs, is to own the real estate equivalent of a gold mine. Since the 1980s, but especially since the turn of this century, where and how Melburnians want to live has shifted and many disused, derelict but once significant sites have been redeveloped. We look at some of the biggest:

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Victoria 

Prominent Site Opposite Victoria Gardens, Richmond, to be Developed at Last

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SALTA Properties is looking to develop one of the several properties it owns around the busy corner of Victoria and Burnley streets, at the suburb border of Richmond and Abbotsford.
 
The Yarra City Council has granted Salta approval to build a $100 million apartment and townhouse project between 10 – 30 Burnley Street Richmond, and opposite the Burnley Street entrance of the Victoria Gardens Shopping Centre, which Salta owns with Centro Properties Group.
 
The aplacetolive.com.au development will include 355 apartments across a suite of individual buildings with distinct identities: Jade at 10 Burnley Street, Ruby at 20 Burnley Street, Ivory at 28 Burnley Street and Sienna at 30 Burnley Street. 

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Aldi
National 

Aldi to Build 500 More Australian Stores

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AldiGERMAN supermarket giant Aldi plans to open about 500 new supermarkets on Australia’s east coast, bringing its national total to more than 700.

In Victoria, new supermarkets are earmarked for Abbotsford, Albury, Caroline Springs, Maryborough and Strathdale. By the end of the year, the state will have 75 Aldi supermarkets, up from 69 now. It’s been reported new stores are also earmarked for Geelong’s Newcomb, Hamilton, Horsham, Morwell, Preston, Sebastapol, Swan Hill and Warragul.

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