Heidelberg; the quiet achiever apartment market ticks over once more
Heidelberg will soon enough host another apartment building, the latest in the suburb's subdued yet steady accumulation of higher density living projects.
Fresh to market is Martin & Powlett which will add 121 new apartments to a pocket of Heidelberg opposite the Austin Hospital. Championed by Blue Earth Group, the proposal was not without its challenges at planning, eventually receiving the nod at Banyule City Council.
Local action group Friends of Powlett Street Common rejected the development outright, citing the 26 metre building as a gross over development.
Nonetheless Martin & Powlett will add further impetus to Heidelberg's expanding apartment market, primarily underpinned by the Heidelberg Station and the Austin Hospital Precinct. The precinct is one the Victorian Planning Authority's urban renewal projects which will see further integrated development opportunities in and around Heidelberg Major Activity Centre.
Blue Earth Group's newest release is in conjunction with CHT Architects. The 2,990 square metre site will see the development span eight levels to a 70 metre Martin Street fontage, with a smaller visual bulk to Powlett Street.
The 121 new one and two bedroom dwellings are ten fewer than what the developer received approval for at the turn of 2016.
Currently, there are 18 apartment development in play across Heidelberg according to the Urban Project Database. The arrival of Martin & Powlett sees it become only the second project in postcode 3084 that is purely at registrations and sales.
There are three projects that are at construction amounting to 352 new apartments for Heidelberg.
Whilst Hello Heidelberg and Montvue are very much representative of the typical Heidelberg apartment development for height and apartment numbers, Caydon Property Group Ivanhoe project is the statistical anomaly in the database. At 443 Upper Heidelberg Road, its 269 apartments are by far and away the suburb's largest development to date.
Ivanhoe aside, Heidelberg has typically seen one or two noteworthy apartment projects under construction at any given time. Vila & Forge at 37 Burgundy Street shapes as the next to hit construction at the hand of builder Balmain&Co.
In and among a raft of smaller apartment developments in waiting, 21 Yarra Street is perhaps Heidelberg's most interesting.
Approval is in place for a 10 storey development which includes office levels and 88 apartments. If realised the development would take apartment living further east away from Heidelberg's Burgundy Street spine, effectively giving rise to a new area open to higher density apartment developments.
