2 Neilson Place rounds out Footscray's Joseph Road Precinct

2 Neilson Place rounds out Footscray's Joseph Road Precinct
Mark BaljakJanuary 31, 2017

The latest and last of Footscray's Joseph Road Precinct super-sites has gone to advertising, outlining a quartet of residential towers planned for the site which is referred to as 2 Nielson Place.

No less that 577 apartments are requested as part of a permit that would square away Joseph Road Precinct's final major land allotment. FJP Pty Ltd is behind the development push, with Architecton in the primary design role; something they would be altogether used to given their existing design experience within the precinct.

Following on from an initial application, revised plans were submitted late last year which lessened the height of three towers and consequently the overall apartment yield.

2 Neilson Place application summary

2 Neilson Place rounds out Footscray's Joseph Road Precinct
Architecton's latest project for the precinct.
  • Vacant land plot of 6,264sqm with two street frontages
  • Proposed quartet of towers, with the tallest at 26 levels or 86 metres
  • 577 apartments: 230 x 1BR, 274 x 2BR, 73 x 3BR
  • Average apartment sizes: 1BR: 46sqm, 2BR: 76sqm, 3BR: 115sqm
  • 290sqm of ground floor food/drink space
  • 465sqm of commercial office space
  • 3,113sqm of communal open space
  • 3,382sqm of internal communal facilities
  • Podium parking for 572 cars
  • Estimated development cost: $180 million

Amenity plus

The staged development is noteworthy for the level of amenity that it intends to bring to the precinct.

As outlined above, a combined total of 6,495sqm of communal space is dedicated to the 577 apartments, which equates to an average of 11.26sqm of open space per apartment. This figure is very much symptomatic of the larger, staged developments within Joseph Road Precinct.

Project specific amenities include podium-top facilities such as a gym, pool, change rooms, internal and external lounge areas, shared kitchen, dining areas, yoga room and a large landscaped open space area. Each tower rooftop sees an external courtyard adjoining an internal multi-purpose area.

Aesthetically 2 Nielson Place's major tower has been designed to be clad in rose gold glass, with Luna St Kilda cited as a design example. Offsetting the 86m golden edifice would be a smaller tower with light grey tinted glass as its primary expression, while the smaller duo would feature dark glass framed by offwhite composite panels.

'Sandstone' finished tiles are envisaged for the projects ground level interface, providing the street level with a 'softer' more earthier appearance.

2 Neilson Place rounds out Footscray's Joseph Road Precinct
Amenity to the fore

Joseph Road Precinct at large

2 Nielson Place is Joseph Road Precinct's seventh major development; of those seven, five can be considered multi-tower developments. At this stage and assuming 2 Nielson Place is approved along its current design path, 23 residential buildings are slated for the precinct, with none yet to reach completion.

2 Nielson Place's 577 apartments adds to the roughly 3,385 apartments already given the nod for the riverside precinct. These apartments will be delivered in towers of up to 31 levels.

How Joseph Road Precinct's planning outcomes compare to initial structure plan expectations will be the subject of another forthcoming article.

2 Neilson Place development team

  • FJP Pty Ltd ATF Palazzo Family Superannuation Fund
  • Architecture and Urban Context: Architecton
  • Planning: Urbis
  • Landscape Plan: Urbis Landscape Architects
  • Traffic Engineering Assessment: Ratio
  • Acoustic, Pedestrian Level Winds and Wind Tunnel Test: Vipac
  • Sustainable Management Plan: Sustainability House
  • Waste Management Plan: Ratio
  • Cultural Heritage Report: Terra Culture

Mark Baljak

Mark Baljak was a co-founder of Urban.com.au. He passed away on Thursday 8th of November 2018 after a battle with cancer. He was 37. Mark was a keen traveller, having visited all six permanently-inhabited continents and had a love of craft beer. One of his biggest passions was observing the change that has occurred in Melbourne over the past two decades. In that time he built an enormous library of photos, all taken by him, which tracked the progress of construction on building sites from across metropolitan Melbourne.

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