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

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.

Read more

Sunland Unveils New Project, Eton, in Melbourne’s Bundoora

IT’S incredible to think Bundoora’s University Hill project, which upon completion will have an end value of more than $1 billion, is being developed on 104-hectares of largely disused farmland local developer MAB Corporation bought from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology in 2004 for just $21 million.

Measured by end value, the project, 20 kilometres north of CBD and on land which also once accommodated the Janefield Special School, is one of Victoria’s biggest urban renewals. In seven years, land around the picturesque Plenty Gorge has slowly been replaced with shopping centres, offices, aged care facilities and housing estates.

Read more

Aerial Penthouse, Camberwell, Expected to Fetch About $4 Million

Queensland born and now Sydney-based developer FKP has listed for sale the one and only penthouse within its contentious Aerial project, at the Camberwell Junction, in East Hawthorn (pictured, right).

The 388 square metre unit is at the top floor of Aerial’s west tower and includes four bedrooms, four car spaces and a 128 square metre balcony. It also has floor-to-ceiling windows offering uninterrupted city skyline views.

The Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal approved Aerial in early 2008, and then in 2009, allowed the developer to increase the number of units within the development by 40 per cent, to 144.

Read more

Controversial South Yarra Project Tresor Set to Take Shape Next Year

NETWORK Nine executive director Jeff Browne has purchased a four-bedroom apartment in one of South Yarra’s most controversial developments.

Tresor, on the corner of Chapel Street and Alexandra Avenue, opposite the Yarra River, will replace a Lamborghini dealership and include 99 apartments over 14 levels.

The development faced opposition from Melbourne High School, whose campus abuts the site, and entrepreneur Lindsay Fox, a former student who uses the school’s helipad.

Read more

Gilpip Starts Redeveloping Former Mornington School

GILPIP Bayside Projects, which in 2008 paid the Catholic Church $10 million for its outgoing St Macartans Primary School, is readying to redevelop the site into a $40 million housing estate.

Gilpip is planning to replace the two-hectare former Tanti Avenue school, with a medium density residential project including 21 apartments and five townhouses, some which will offer water views.

A 15-lot subdivision, with block sizes ranging from 415 square metres to 623 square metres has also been put to the market, as part of the Macartans Place redevelopment, which Gilpip is marketing  via an on-site sales suite.

Read more