$90m Melbourne CBD development site opposite Flagstaff Gardens for sale
“Park-fronted CBD sites with multi-tower capacity are virtually non-existent anymore,” says Cushman & Wakefield international director Oliver Hay, of 388 William Street, dubbed ‘The Trilogy ’, which has recently come to market.
“This would represent the largest park-fronted site in the CBD available for development.”
The impressive 3915-square-metre site overlooking Flagstaff Gardens in Melbourne CBD will contribute to the city’s changing skyline as it’s poised for a 36-storey, multi-tower mixed-use development.
The William and Franklin streets property has more than 128 metres of combined frontage and overlooks one of Melbourne’s oldest parks, Flagstaff Gardens, which opened to the public in 1862.
The existing permit allows about 63,700 square metres of gross building area, more than 16 times the size of the underlying land.
The site’s Capital City zoning could support residential apartments, build-to-rent, student accommodation, a hotel, offices and other commercial uses, subject to approval.
Hay says the zoning was among Melbourne’s most flexible, meaning the commercial component could also extend beyond conventional office space to uses such as medical suites, cafes and retail.
At street level, hospitality and retail could draw activity from Flagstaff Gardens, nearby workers and visitors moving between the city and Queen Victoria Market. Above it, residential, hotel or commercial towers could take advantage of an outlook that cannot later be built out.
The combination was expected to attract both major Australian developers and international capital seeking to add a large Melbourne project to their pipeline.
“Permit-approved development sites of this magnitude are becoming increasingly difficult to secure in the CBD,” says Hay.
“We expect buyers looking to build their Melbourne pipeline will recognise the strategic value of securing a site where much of the planning risk has already been removed.
Its location in the northern CBD is also undergoing significant change through the wider renewal of Queen Victoria Market and the development of Gurrowa Place, bringing new housing, offices, retail space and public areas to the precinct.
Cushman & Wakefield international director Leon Ma said the location placed the site between two very different forms of amenity: an established park on one side and a major urban renewal precinct on the other.
“Few Melbourne CBD sites can offer permanently protected park views on one side and the transformation of the Queen Victoria Market precinct on the other. That combination of scale, planning certainty and surrounding amenity creates the potential for a truly significant development,” he says.
International expressions of interest close at noon on Thursday, October 1.
