Auburn Land Group enters the West Melbourne apartment market

Auburn Land Group enters the West Melbourne apartment market
Mark BaljakJuly 26, 2017

A developer new to the Urban.com.au Project Database is seeking a berth within the bustling West Melbourne apartment scene.

137-157 Adderley Street as a tri-fronted 1,606sqm site headed to planning during May on behalf of Auburn Land Group. Surrounded by a variety of other current apartment developments, the Adderley Street land holding sits between North Melbourne railway station and the area's most high profile mixed-use development, West End.

The immediate area surrounding 137-157 Adderley Street is a mixture of "terrace houses, commercial offices, workshops and showrooms; buildings of various periods and architectural styles." Auburn Land Group is looking to push the suburb further down the path of higher density residential, by seeking the right to deliver 112 apartments within a 10 level building.

Buchan Group has designed the possible the new addition in line with the objectives of the Better Apartments Design Standards.

The new application follows on from a previous design at planning which was scuppered when the site in question was sold by CBRE City Sales during 2016.

137-157 Adderley Street application summary

Auburn Land Group enters the West Melbourne apartment market
Street level perspective of the new development. Planning image: Buchan Group
  • Application submitted May 2017
  • Site area: 1,606sqm with 3 street frontages
  • Proposed: 10 level building at 32.8m
  • 112 apartments: 29 x 1BR, 26 x 1BR + S, 57 x 2BR
  • Apartment size range: 47sqm - 84sqm
  • 102 car parking spaces & 40 bicycle bays
  • GFA: 15,300.9sqm
  • Development cost: $25 million

The site in context

A significant objective of this design response is to provide a considered building form; of scale and articulation that is appropriate to the location context and contributes a well-mannered and positive presence to the West Melbourne streetscape.

One of the most captivating aspects of this site and indeed, a primary characteristic of the West Melbourne context, is the tree line'boulevard'streets, featuring, particularly in the north-south streets, mature deciduous plane trees.

The building design seeks to celebrate this aspect of the context by incorporating into the design highly reflective glass in the street fronting facades to literally reflect the tree foliage and by adopting the seasonal colours of the trees in the vertical shade blades that are affixed to the face of Level 5 and 6 street facades.

The blades will be colour coded to express the seasons.

Urban context report, Buchan Group

Into an active space

West Melbourne and Box Hill continue to be the two dominant non-CBD/Southbank locales where large scale apartment projects continue to be consumed by buyers at a steady rate.

Auburn Land Group's Adderley Street project becomes the 27th apartment project entry for West Melbourne within the Urban.com.au Project Database.

As part of their planning representation, Buchan Group has delivered an overview of West Melbourne that clearly shows the march of higher density living in the suburb. Pink sections represent existing low-rise commercial plots which have become the target of many a developer, while light blue denotes single dwellings and navy multi-residential.

What can be taken from the below graphic is that West Melbourne still has an abundance of sites capable of handling higher density projects.

Auburn Land Group enters the West Melbourne apartment market
West Melbourne development overview. Planning image: Buchan Group

137-157 Adderley Street development team

  • Developer: Auburn Land Group
  • Architect: The Buchan Group
  • Town Planning: Urbis
  • Traffic: O'Brien Traffic
  • Waste Management: R B Waste Management

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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