The third coming > 360 William Street, Melbourne

Melbourne-based Ubertas Group are waiting upon final planning approval for their latest project located at 360 William Street.  The tower is their fourth in Melbourne and would serve as a sister building to the neighbouring 350 William Street which is better known as Art on the Park/Oaks on William.

The fruitful relationship between Ubertas and Fender Katsalidis Architects continues with the latter having designed all of Ubertas Group's projects to date.  360 William Street is no exception with the project set to capitalise upon the strong demand within the hotel/serviced apartment sector at the moment.

360 William Street planning application summary

• 1,203sqm site current use: partly demolished two storey office building
• Planning application submitted June 2014
• Proposed: 22 level residential tower at 66.31 metres
• ​Total GFA: 25,658sqm.
• 239 apartments: 199*1BR / 40*2BR
• 6 basement levels catering for 142 car parking spaces and 114 bicycles
• 103.1 sqm & 64.4sqm retail space fronting William Street
• Gym, conference, function and meeting rooms included over levels 1 & 2

Design rationale

The proposed development aims to enhance the vitality of the Flagstaff gardens precinct by contributing a well-designed, simple and robust piece of architecture.  It strives to achieve this through the provision of livable high amenity apartments maximising north and garden views.

The building form accommodates apartments within faceted glass balustrades. These balustrades take their cues from the changing foliage of Flagstaff gardens across the road.  Furthermore, the contrasting characteristic of concrete used in the development compliments the neighbouring building in both form and materiality.

Fender Katsalidis - Town Planning Document

The third coming

The current planning application follows on from two separate designs put forward for this site with an initial mixed-use tower of some 177 metres never progressing past planning approval.  The 'statement' tower covering 350-360 William Street would have consisted primarily of glass, aluminium louvres, stone, concrete or metal panels.  Commercial and hotel components plus 636 apartments were to have consumed most of the available space.

History will show that the site was split in order to generate two separate towers, with the initial 35 level 350 William Street reaching completion mid 2013.  A 12 level residential tower for 360 William Street had also gained approval, seemingly in recent times given  the completed 350 William Street is present to its right in the render below right.  It in turn has been replaced by the subject design of today's article.

Serviced apartments anyone?

360 William Street's planning application has been with DTPLI for some time; barring any substantial design changes the project should be nearing a final planning decision soon enough.

More interesting is the internal layout of the tower with levels 3-21 generic and where 83% of apartments are single bedroom and on average slightly above 50sqm in size. Further 360 William Street's proposed amenities are essentially corporate in nature - conference, function and meeting rooms; not necessarily tailored toward owner-occupiers.

The bulk if not all of 360 William Street's rooms look likely to become serviced apartments, akin to the neighbouring 350 William Street where Ubertas installed Oaks Hotels and Resorts in order to manage the 220 4.5 star serviced apartments post planning approval.  

360 William Street planning team 

• Developer: Ubertas Group
• Planning: Urbis
• Architects: Fender Katsalidis Architects
• Building Services: Simpson Kotzman 
• Structural Engineer: Webber Design 
• Traffic Engineering: Ratio Consultants 
• Building Surveyor: PLP Consultants 
• Waste Management: Wastech Services
• Environmental Wind: MEL Consultants
• ESD: Ark Resources