Yarraville industrial site for sale
A 7.4-hectare Yarraville site owned by chemical giant Orica next to the Port of Melbourne has been listed for sale.
It is being offered for sale through Walter Occhiuto and Andrew Dawkins from Dawkins Occhiuto.
The Industrial 1-zoned property is on the corner of Whitehall and Lyell streets.
Offers are due by November 9, with flexible settlement terms available.
With neighbours including chemical manufacturer Albright and Wilson, Whitehall Street was dubbed one of Victoria's most contaminated strips of land in 2005. Environmental watchdog the EPA included Orica’s site in its report, noting it had range of contaminants on its Whitehall Street site, including mercury and other heavy metals. The EPA called for an audit on the property.
It was reported that at the start of last century, Tasmanian company Mount Lyell shipped hundreds of thousands of tonnes of iron pyrites – a copper mining by-product – to the banks of the Maribyrnong River in Yarraville. It set up a factory on what is now the Orica site. The factory, and its neighbour Cuming Smith, a fertiliser and acid manufacturer, roasted the pyrites in a kiln. The released sulphur dioxide, which was made into sulphuric acid, was used in the manufacture of superphosphate fertilisers. The leftover material was a purplish iron oxide called "spent oxides" or "cinders".
From 1901, iron oxide was used to fill the river flats on the banks of the lower Maribyrnong, noted the historian Professor Ian Rae, a chemist who has advised governments on hazardous substances.
Yarraville was named by its pioneer land speculators promoters to emphasise its proximity to the Yarra River when it was subdivided for housing in the 1850s by the partnership of Biers, Henningham and Co, which issued 900 invitations to its inaugural fete, picnic and land sale.
But its residential ambience changed in the 1870s when the waterfront was taken up by large, smelly factories given the onset of modern manufacturing to Melbourne.
Across the river is Coode Island.
As manufacturing employment has declined, the residential parts of Yarraville have been reinvented as a commuter suburb with weatherboard cottages. Its commercial precinct around Anderson Street is possibly Melbourne's narrowest main street, now with restaurants, cafés and organic produce shops.