Melbourne CBD’s tallest residential tower crown tussle
There's three serious highrises now competing for buyers in Melbourne.
None are struggling for attention as they are all the highest in their own right.
It follows the late 2012 go-ahead for CEL Australia’s $170 million Tower Melbourne which will boast 555 apartments (and townhouses) across 71 storeys.
The 220-metre tower will be the tallest residential building in the central business district, though not the tallest in Melbourne.
The proposed plan for the corner of Bourke and Queen streets has an an expected completion date in 2016.
The Tower Melbourne skyscraper (pictured below) has been designed by local architects at Elenberg Fraser and features thin, undulating glass construction. The building is set to be just shorter than the iconic blue glass Rialto Tower, which rises to 250 metres at the Southern Cross station end of Collins Steet.
Architect Callum Fraser from Elenberg Fraser describes Tower Melbourne as “a city-defining project” in a marketing video.
Already Tower Melbourne has been heavily marketed to “cashed-up Chinese investors”, who consider Melbourne a safe place to park new-found wealth.
The developer CEL Australia, a subsidiary of Singapore-based Chip Eng Seng Corporation Ltd, is using real estate agents with networks in the Chinese investor market.
Sunny Lu from Professionals City told The Age her customers in China viewed super-high-rise buildings as prestigious.
Property Observer reported on the Tower Melbourne project back in October last year, when Melbourne lord mayor Robert Doyle called the Singaporean developer “a bit cheeky” after it began marketing before the project was approved.
Doyle, labeling it “too big”, opposes highrise for the sake of high rise records.
The lord mayor was back in the news this week labelling the ambitious Australia 108, the touted tallest highrise in the southern hemisphere, as too high.
Raising concerns it could overshadow the Shrine of Remembrance, Cr Doyle, a Shrine trustee, said the mooted 108-storey Southbank apartment and hotel tower exceeded the city council's height limits. The council's Future Melbourne committee is to consider a report on Australia 108 next Tuesday.
Architects Fender Katsalidis, who designed the nearby Eureka Tower, are behind the Australia 108 project, which would be the world's 18th tallest building at 70 Southbank Boulevard.
On its November unveiling, Property Observer noted its had a few hurdles to overcome before fruition.
It's scheduled for mooted late 2015 completion and it doesn't actually have planning approval, but the developers of the Australia 108 tower (picture below) in Melbourne's Southbank precinct are inviting buyer registrations at $1,000 a pop. Prices are already been released starting at $425,000 for one-bedroom apartments and from $575,000 for two-bedroom apartments. Its three bedrooms are priced from $775,000.
The 108-storey project will be 388-metre skyscraper high above Melbourne's Yarra River.
At the northern end of town, the developer Brady Group is currently marketing its proposed 226-metre tower at 500 Elizabeth Street, near Queen Victoria Market.
The proposed 72-level tower gained approval for its current design in April last year.
Marketing for the 524-apartment complex is in full swing, with advertisements being placed online and at the site. Prices for apartments ranged from $381,000 to $3 million. Vision (pictured below) has mostly three-bedroom apartments and penthouses with only a small number of one-bedroom apartments.
The Eureka Tower in Southbank is Melbourne’s tallest tower, rising to 297 metres.
“When Tower Melbourne is completed it will be just one of 12 buildings above 200 metres in the central Melbourne area. Thus any suggestion of it being too tall is somewhat perplexing,” suggested minister Matthew Guy earlier this year.
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