Construction beckons for Queens Place
Another of Melbourne's batch of sizeable apartment projects is closer to reality, with a construction tender now open for Queens Place Tower 1. The tender process was initiated mid July with developer 3L Alliance expecting construction to begin toward the end of the year or early next year.
Queens Place is currently 81% sold. Consisting of dual residential towers spanning 246 metres in height, Queens Place is a joint design between firms Cox Architecture and Fender Katsalidis Architects, with Hecker Guthrie handling the interiors.
Fronting La Trobe Street and Queen Street, the $1 billion dollar project covers a 7,295sqm site and will include the retention of KTS House at 350 Queen Street, in addition to roughly 1,700 apartments spread over two towers.
The sheer size of both site and project has facilitated a design that includes a mass of services at ground level.
Shaping as a prime example of a vertical master-planned community, Queens Place joins the likes of West Side Place and Southbank's approved 93-119 Kavanagh Street in bringing a gamut of uses throughout its lower levels.
Queens Place will include a criss-cross network at ground level of public spaces, including a laneway running from La Trobe Street to A'Beckett Street.·A central public plaza will be surrounded by a supermarket, medical clinic, crèche, professional office space and shared facilities for a farmers market, outdoor cinema and/or art exhibitions.
Across its lower levels, Queens Place has been designed by the development team to enhance the way in which pedestrians interact with their surroundings. Currently the site is dominated by a single level car park that was built as an infill development a little over a decade ago.
The twin-tower project is arguably a genuine master-planned community, albeit a vertical one.
Queens Place will sit in stark contrast to many of the contemporary apartment projects appearing through the northern reaches of Melbourne's CBD, which are located on smaller single tower sites, lacking the size capacity to incorporate extensive public features. City of Melbourne's Munro site shapes as the next project that will have a highly interactive and permeable public podium interface, with a 200 plus metre residential tower tipped to sit above.
On a wider note, Queens Place's construction start will likely coincide with those of Union Tower, 399 Little Lonsdale Street and Iglu's student accommodation project at 229 Franklin Street, providing the northern CBD with its next wave of construction activity.
