Historic Avalon Mansion Demolished

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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Former PM Residence, St Kilda Road, Melbourne, Listed For Sale

ONE of the few remaining historic mansions in Melbourne’s grand St Kilda Road is being offered for sale – but its fate – as a luxury home, or as an equally lavish office – is now in the hands of whoever waves the biggest cheque.

The prominent Airlie mansion at 452 St Kilda Road, on the north-west corner of Arthur Street was once occupied by Prime Minister Stanley Bruce whose Nationalist-Country coalition governed the country between 1923 – 1929.

Built in 1891, Airlie was eminent during a period St Kilda Road was revered as the address of Melbourne’s wealthiest aristocrats and where some of the city’s most grandiose residential real estate was developed.

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Macquarie Office Trust to Sell 71 Queens Road Office, Melbourne

71 Queens RoadMACQUARIE Office Trust is about to test drive the performance of the commercial property markets, listing for sale an office investment overlooking the challenging Schumacher and Piquet bends of the F1 Albert Park race track.

It was just three years ago, but toward the peak of the commercial property market, that MOT paid $26.26 million for the 11-level, 8400 square metre B-grade office previously known as the Zurich building.

Now known as SMEC House, 71 Queens Road is expected to sell this time around for about $23 million, sources say reflecting a yield of about 9.5 per cent based on the asset’s annual income of just over $2.2 million.

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