This article is from the Australian Property Journal archive
JEFF Xu’s Golden Age Group has been given the green light for a 27 level commercial office tower in Melbourne’s CBD, at the site of the former headquarters of the Uniting Church that was earmarked for a hotel development.
Developed by Golden Age Group and featuring a design team of Cox Architecture, Hecker Guthrie and Jack Merlo, the 130 Lt Collins St project will be built on a 651 sqm corner block and will feature retail, column free office spaces, business centre, high end amenities, private end of trip facilities and sustainable garden and communal rooftop terraces.
The existing eight level building has 3,797 sqm of office space and ground floor retail with a combined 53 metres of frontage. It served as the Uniting Church’s Victorian and Tasmanian headquarters for since being built in 1967.
Golden Age purchased the site in July last year for over $40 million from the Uniting Church with approval for a 184 room, 27 level hotel designed by Elenberg Fraser. The Uniting Church offered the property ahead of its move to 130 Lonsdale St at Charter Hall’s Wesley Place, on land owned by the Church.
It had signed a development agreement with BPM in 2015 and Melbourne City Council had initially rejected the hotel tower proposal, but the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal overruled the decision in 2018.
Xu, Golden Age Group founder and managing director, said 130 Lt Collins St “reimagines the typical commercial office building and in a post-COVID world, is more relevant than ever before”.
“The typical commercial building has been turned on its head as a result of COVID; businesses have realised they can work efficiently outside of the corporate environment and they no longer want to share with hundreds of other tenants.
“Instead, we’re foreseeing a preference towards more boutique floorplans as a result of businesses scaling down their requirements for an office, coupled with something that greater emphasises lifestyle, which we’ve achieved through sustainable design, state of the art amenities and new-age technology.”
He said 130 Lt Collins St is “more akin to a lifestyle hotel design than a typical commercial office tower,” he said.
Hecker Guthrie has drawn upon their experience of designing boutique hotel and hospitality spaces to create interiors that “blur the line between lifestyle and corporate”.
The project will look to target 5-Star NABERS and 5-Star Green Star Design & As-Built ratings, in addition to WELL Certification.
It is set to launch to market in the coming months.
