Get to know Port Melbourne like the back of your hand, with Monique Sasson Wakelin

Melbourne’s suburban beaches are not among the city’s headline acts. Compared with Sydney’s grand, glamorous ocean beaches, such as Bondi or Coogee, the slivers of sand that hug the northern edge of becalmed Port Phillip Bay are genteel affairs.

That’s okay, we Melbournians are cool with that. However, if you want to select a salty suburb to promenade upon within a stone’s throw of the CBD, there is always Elwood, St Kilda, Albert Park or South Melbourne.

Source: Google Maps

Closer still is Port Melbourne. Its palm tree-lined beach is just three kilometres from Southern Cross Station. Once you’ve had your fill of the beach there’s a great selection of chilled-out bars and restaurants along Beach Street to pull up a pew and watch the flotilla of ships on the bay including, twice a day, the Spirit of Tasmania ferry to-ing and fro-ing from the Apple Isle, the periodic cruise liner, as well as the several container ships sitting on the horizon or seemingly rounding on the West Gate Bridge. And then there’s that spectacular, romantic sunset.

Port Melbourne is, of course, still a working port. Indeed, three-quarters of the suburb’s 10 square kilometres is devoted to the business of shipping or import-export related industries. Its small residential precinct is cornered in the south-east of the suburb, bordered by Pickles Street in the east, Boundary Street to the north, Williamstown Road to the north-west and the bay to the south.

Despite the scale of the commercial and industrial maritime aspects of Port Melbourne, they don’t impinge markedly on the quality of residential life in Port Melbourne. There are some truck movements on Beach Street, Bay Street and Williamstown Road, but most of it is efficiently siphoned away by the West Gate Freeway. Indeed, the suburb is far less disrupted by truck traffic than the likes of Yarraville and Newport on the opposing bank of the Yarra and, being an end-of-the-line kind of place, it isn’t that jammed up with cars either.

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Photos courtesy of Gappa/Flickr.

Beyond its sea frontage, one of the main attractions of Port Melbourne is the ease of commuting to the CBD. The light railway whips commuters from the beach to Southern Cross Station in ten minutes, whilst many residents choose to walk or cycle to work.

Bay Street is a fully-featured, bustling shopping strip and, for a more old-fashioned way of filling the pantry, the lovely South Melbourne market is a five minute drive north.

Unusually for an inner suburb, Port Melbourne has some very distinctive residential localities. Garden City, a 1920s Beaux Arts estate, occupies a long narrow strip of land south of Williamstown Road between Todd Road and Graham Street. Beacon Cove, a more recent incarnation of a Beaux Arts estate, sits to the south east of Garden City. Finally, there is a cluster of high rise apartments along The Boulevard and Beach Street.

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Photos courtesy of Matt/Flickr.

Unsurprisingly, all this property is in great demand. Larger houses on good-size blocks in Garden City can command $1.5 million plus. The penthouses in some of the most well-positioned high rise apartments overlooking the bay do even better. And Beacon Cove, a more architecturally balanced affair than many other contemporary estates, is very popular. So it is no surprise that Port Melbourne is a highly sought after spot for home owners.

However, Port Melbourne doesn’t have many great examples of a landscape more traditionally associated with classic investment principles – the consistent row of classic Victorian and Edwardian cottages on a quiet street. There are a pockets of these in the northeast corner, above Graham Street. But you’ll pass through a number of streets dominated by townhouse and warehouse conversions to get to them.

Consequently, despite its great appeal for homeowners, many Inner Bayside investors choose to head for Albert Park, Middle Park or St Kilda – places that deliver a similar amenity but with a more plentiful selection of classic investment architecture.

You can contact Monique on Twitter.