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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GIC Latest Favourite to Buy Salta Portfolio

SALTA Properties is reportedly now in negotiations to sell its industrial portfolio to Singaporean government investment group GIC, for about $220 million.

The GIC offer replaces an earlier reported deal made by Korean pension fund Ikogest Asia.

Salta is selling eight separate logistics facilities in Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland.

Before news of a private sale, the portfolio was expected to be floated.

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Salta Looks to Build on More Land Around Victoria Gardens, Richmond

LOCAL developer Salta is pushing ahead with plans to build apartments on undeveloped pieces of land immediately surrounding the Victoria Gardens shopping centre, on the Richmond riverfront.

It’s applied to the Yarra City Council to build 405 flats within new complexes between 25 – 35 River Boulevard and at 15 Christine Crescent. The proposed developments would add 480 permanent car spaces and 30 visitor spots to the area, which is not serviced by a train.

Salta acquired the former Melbourne Fire Brigade land where Victoria Gardens was built in stages. With its last major purchase in 2004, it seized control of every corner at the busy intersection of Burnley, Walmer and Victoria streets.

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Peter Mac East Melbourne Hospital Closer to Hitting Market

DEVELOPERS might not have to wait much longer to get their hands on one what has for years been one of Melbourne’s most anticipated building blocks.

Sources are confident hospital Peter MacCallum Cancer Institute is one of the sickbays expected to “sell surplus property” ahead of a move to the new $1 billion Victorian Comprehensive Cancer Clinic, which is under construction at the top of the Haymarket roundabout in Carlton.

The former Royal Dental Hospital, which stood on a portion of what will be the new Victorian CCC, was demolished in August last year. The new centre is scheduled to open in 2015.

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Melbourne’s Riverside About to Undergo Apartment Building Boom

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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Salta Buys Residential Development Site in Congested Inner-City Precinct

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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Salta to Start Construction at Derelict Richmond Corner at Last

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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Kraft Foods to Sublease Prominent Port Melbourne Office, Ahead of Move to South Wharf

THE outgoing Kraft Foods building – one of the inner-city’s largest standalone offices – is for rent.
 
The high-tech suburban headquarters – built for but never occupied by Boeing Industries ten years ago, measures 10,230 square metres and includes 360 car spaces.
 
The 187 Todd Road office is owned by Challenger which reportedly paid Salta $46 million for it, and a 12,000 square metre office warehouse at 300 Lorimer Street in 2002. Kraft is relocating to new offices at South Wharf.

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

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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Julliard Group Pays Salta $18.9 Million For Port Melbourne Asset

PRIVATE investment group the Julliard Group has paid $18.9 million for a Port Melbourne commercial asset.

The fully-leased building at 1 – 23 Wirraway Drive sold on a yield of 8.3 per cent, based on the building’s annual income of $1.583 million.

The building was offloaded by private developer Salta Property Group, which last week sold another asset in Port Melbourne before a scheduled auction.

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