The boutique city apartments that come with home offices and luxury concierge services, including dog walkers
Developers are cementing the home office as a trend in boutique city apartments.
One firm has made them a central feature, aimed at people living interstate or down on the coast, in a new Fender Katsalidis Architects-designed 25-storey hotel and apartment complex in central Melbourne.
Calvin Huang’s family development company, DCF Property, is planning the hotel and home-office project for its 152-156 Little Lonsdale site just north of the State Library of Victoria.
A render of the hotel proposed for 152 Little Lonsdale Street.
Huang received permission from the City of Melbourne last week to demolish the three-storey 1960s-era office building on the site, and work is expected to start on the new complex in February of next year.
“We’ve got a great permit for a city-based home office and hotel in the post-COVID era, which I believe will work here,” Huang said.
The hotel, designed by Fender Katsalidis Architects’ Karl Fender and James Pearce, is going up in a section of the CBD full of new towers, including Charter Hall’s Wesley Place across the road and the Pellicano and Perri Group’s 20-level project on Bennett’s Lane.
It’s also just a block away from Setia’s $500 million ghost hotel, the aptly named Shangri-La Hotel, which remains an empty shell without fittings or fixtures despite its completion by Multiplex nearly a year ago.
DCF’s project is comparatively modest. The first 12 floors of the new tower will be a hotel, while the top 12 floors will offer single-floor apartments with office facilities.
Fit-outs will be designed so the apartments can mimic office space when required.
“It’s for people who might live interstate, or the suburbs or down on the coast who need to come up to Melbourne for work,” said Huang.
The central 13th floor will be a clubhouse called The Guild, offering social and business space and luxury concierge services, including translators, dog walkers, and travel booking.
DCF is paying $56 million for Mitchell House at 358 Lonsdale Street, Melbourne.
DCF paid $12.88 million for the 404-square-metre site in 2022 in a post-auction deal that reflected a tight yield of 1.59 per cent. It was the first time the address had changed hands since 1958.
DCF has its own offices at 152 Little Lonsdale.
“We’ll have to find somewhere else now,” he said.
That shouldn’t be too hard. Just before Christmas, Huang put a caveat over Mitchell House at 358 Lonsdale Street, the Art Deco gem on the corner of Elizabeth Street.
The $56 million purchase was the biggest deal in the CBD all year. But DCF also has another option.
Huang also revealed his family office was the recent buyer of 221 Drummond Street in Carlton, which was acquired last month for $6.6 million.
The two-storey building on the corner of Grattan Street was designed in 1986 by noted architects Howard Raggatt and the late Steve Ashton before they formed ARM Architecture, and has been nominated for a heritage listing.
DCF has no plans to knock that one down and start again.
“We will refurbish that building, open up the floor plates, expose the ceilings and centralise the kitchen,” he said.
Meanwhile, the company is working on a new development project called New Johnston at 398-400 Johnston Street, around the corner from the Victoria Park football ground.
Despite its focus on “quiet luxury,” the low-rise 46-apartment project, designed by MA+Co, will maintain the red-brick streetscape that marks Abbotsford’s industrial heritage.
It will also offer seven office suites to apartment buyers on a first-come, first-served basis and provide desk facilities in common areas.
So far, investors from far-flung Brisbane have proved the most active off-the-plan buyers in the project with its $515,000-$525,000 entry-level price point cheaper than the equivalent in Brisbane.
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