Maribyrnong on the radar
A display suite for 62 Wests Road, Maribyrnong is rapidly coming together for a development which garnered much local opposition during the town planning process. Designed by Interlandi Mantesso Architects on behalf of prevalent local developer JMC Group, the development consisting of five buildings which will seemingly be delivered over stages. Following site demolition, the display is being constructed upon land that will eventually take the development's largest building at 18 levels.
As mentioned the VCAT-endorsed scheme (below) sees five buildings of varying heights with the smallest buildings of four and three levels set to front Wests Road. Buildings of seven and ten levels are also likely to be built first with the 18 level, 165 apartment, tower the likely last cab off the rank. Overall numbers see 354 apartments endorsed over a site of 8907sqm with built coverage of 84% and site permeability of 9%. Project car parking spaces total 516, quite large relative to apartments offered yet of those spaces, 73 will be available for visitors. 230 bicycle spaces have been approved with 76 allocated to visitors; essentially one visitor bike space to every two offered for residents which seems a proportionally high amount.
Seven differing apartment layouts will be offered over the development, starting with three differing one bedroom options ranging in size between 59sqm and 76.7sqm which include external spaces according to the endorsed planning application. Thereafter three two bedroom options are available with the smallest starting at 79sqm, and the largest 2 bedroom + 2 bathroom + study delivering 130.8sqm of living space, 96.2sqm of which is internal. The final 3 bedroom + 2 bathroom layout sees a total of 142sqm available with 128.6sqm of internal living space.
The images below are interesting in that they allude to where the future of Maribyrnong lies. 62 Wests Road sits at the junction of two tram lines, they being lines 82 connecting Moonee Ponds with Footscray and 57 linking Melbourne CBD with West Maribyrnong. Coupled with a bus interchange at Highpoint, Highpoint itself and the associated homemaker hubs plus community facilities and this particular pocket of Maribyrnong very much lend itself to intensive high density renewal given the immediacy of transport and services. Currently utilised as self storage and light industrial, the land bound by Wests, Rosamond and Raleigh Roads is prime real estate as envisaged by Interlandi Mantesso below, and supported by VCAT during its approval of 62 Wests Road.
The unknown to date is what form the Maribyrnong Defence Site (brown form below left) redevelopment will take. Factoring in atrocious soil conditions leading to an incredibly expensive remediation process plus the growing propensity for individuals to choose apartment living, and high rise residential towers in part seem likely for Places Victoria's Capri plan. Cast your minds forward a decade or so and it's not beyond the realms of possibility that a multitude of apartment towers up to twenty levels will be Maribyrnong's highly visible signpost.
Unlikely? Quite possibly although the push toward highrise living in Maribyrnong has gathered momentum of late. Below is an image taken from the 2 Wests Road planning application currently before Maribyrnong City Council. At 15 levels and containing 192 apartments the proposal is further enforcement of the notion that vast tracts of unused land around major transport/infrastructure centres should be used to their maximum potential, that is within the scope of appropriate local council framework of course. VCAT in its decision for 62 Wests Road has set a precedent of sorts for the area in terms of height and density, one that the below proposal seems to fall within so it will be interesting to see Maribyrnong City Council's stance on this application.
Without even broaching the subject of Edgewater Estate Maribyrnong, itself a hotbed of apartment construction, it's clear that Maribyrnong has the land, infrastructure and developer intent to become a higher density, highrise suburb. And like most other suburbs of Melbourne, the speed and shape in which this occurs are the unknown quantities.