Breathing New Life Into Melbourne’s Landmark Sites

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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