PDG eyes next build-to-rent project in Melbourne
Private developer PDG Corporation is weighing the prospect of a $200 million build-to-rent housing project on the fringe of the Melbourne CBD after success with an earlier such development on the other side of the city.
Led by owner Vince Giuliano, PDG has lodged plans with state planners for a housing development of about 270 residences, including 40 affordable-housing units.
The proposal includes a 91-room hotel and 1400 square metres of retail and council facilities.
The development application follows on from the deal PDG struck with the City of Melbourne to take over the site of the former JH Boyd Girls’ High School in Kavanagh Street, Southbank, just outside the CBD.
PDG will pay $16.5 million for the site and will deliver 1000 square metres of community space.
It is the second such agreement the busy private developer has forged with the Town Hall over council-controlled land, with a $450 million apartment and hotel project already under way opposite Queen Victoria Market in the CBD.
“Our vision is to create a vertical village that will be enhanced by the newly created two-acre park as its main entrance,” Mr Giuliano said of the latest project.
“It will be an energetic collaboration of high-quality residences with community and nature, culminating in the perfect inner-city home, the new Boyd Village.”
PDG has not ruled out allotting some or even all of the project for build-to-rent, following on from a similar result achieved at its development near Queen Victoria Market.
For this project, PDG struck a deal with Mirvac in June to turn over the completed apartments into a build-to-rent platform.
Mirvac will acquire 490 completed units in the project opposite the market at the northern end of the city in a $333.5 million agreement.
PDG aims to begin construction next year at the Boyd site with a two-year construction program.
The private developer is meanwhile forging ahead with plans for $1 billion research and education project on the northern fringe of the city.
Already, it has won a 35,000 sq m pre-commitment from blood products giant CSL for new corporate headquarters and state-of-the art laboratories within the development at the top of Elizabeth Street.
When PDG took over the Elizabeth Street site from Toyota, the car-maker was in advanced planning for a four-tower residential project on the site.
Mr Giuliano and his team switched track to commercial, pulling together a larger scheme across an entire city block and spread across two major landholdings: the Toyota dealership, controlled by PDG itself, and next to it the Bob Jane T-Mart site, which has also submitted a separate but linked development proposal.
