Grollo cousins compete for Docklands tender
The two wings of the Grollo family are competing for the right to develop the last $1 billion Batman Hill construction site to be won in the Melbourne’s Docklands precinct.
It is believed to be the first time the third generation of the construction family have directly competed for the same development rights.
The bidding parties are headed by cousins Daniel Grollo and Lorenz Grollo, according to the Australian Financial Review.
Daniel’s Grocon has joined with Mirvac, and Lorenz's Equiset with Australand.
The other shortlisted bidders are Lend Lease and Leighton.
Victorian Planning Minister Matthew Guy says the four shortlisted bidders have until October 26 to finalise their development proposals.
Initial registrations closed in March for the two-hectare site, with a prestigious Collins Street address. It also includes a Flinders Street frontage and air rights above Wurundjeri Way.
Set adjacent to Southern Cross Station, and neighbouring Media House, the site will see the gap closed along Collins Street linking the CBD to Docklands.
Guy has said the successful bidder will be announced early next year.
At present about $1.57 billion worth of commercial and residential development, totalling more than 260,000 square meters of gross floor area comprising more than 1,140 dwellings, is under construction in Docklands.
It was 1928 when the Grollo family left Treviso, Italy to start a new life in Melbourne. In the 1940s Luigi started a business with a small team of men and one truck. Over the next 50 years, the business grew into one of Australia’s largest and most successful construction groups.
In 2000, Luigi’s sons Bruno and Rino divided the company to pursue their own goals.
The Batman Hill precinct was the proposed site of the Grollo Tower, with an original proposed height of 678 metres. The development concept was scrapped in 2001.
