A 220m-plus tall development has been approved at 400 Queen St, Melbourne.
A massive, 220m-plus tall tower has been approved by the state government on the doorstep of the Queen Victoria market.
The $495m, 65-storey, 1500-residence building is the latest to be pushed through by the Allan government as it seeks to bolster the pipeline of new housing projects across the city.
But there are already questions over its construction timeline, with development industry groups warning the cost of building apartment towers will likely grow as the Iran conflict continues.
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The 400 Queen St site will include 693 new apartments, 900 student accommodation homes, as well as office and retail space and be developed by Malaysia-based firm Sime Darby Property.
The approval also comes with an $8m contribution for affordable housing projects across the state.
Sime Darby bought the site, then a seven-storey car park owned by Kim Lim Pty Ltd and the home of TMG College Australia, for $115m in 2024.
The COX Architects designed project will be one of the tallest on the western side of the Melbourne CBD, and among Melbourne’s 25 tallest towers to date.
The height and location of the tower sparked Queen Victoria Market trader concerns it would impact the market — particular with the project to replace an existing carpark.
It also comes amid growing concerns over a backlog of approved major towers with little construction underway.
The development is expected to have retail and commercial spaces on the lower levels.
Planning Minister Sonya Kilkenny said the approval was part of their goal to build more homes close to public transport and key amenities.
“We’ve approved more than 1,500 homes right in the heart of the CBD so more people can live closer to work, uni, public transport and everything they need,” Ms Kilkenny said.
But with a growing number of substantial apartment towers approved, but not yet under construction, there are questions over when work will commence on many of them.
An impressive facade aspect to the project will build ground-level engagement.
Urban Development Institute of Australia Victorian executive director Linda Allison yesterday said while they appreciated planning approval support from the government “the overall fundamentals still have to stack up”.
“It’s been challenging in Victoria since post-Covid, particularly for the apartment sector, and we would expect that to continue unless there’s some kind of intervention that supports industry to get these projects out of the ground,” Ms Allison said.
She added that the war in Iran was causing knock on effects to key building materials including PVC piping and resins, as well as general cost hikes for materials and trades due to rising fuel costs, which would inevitably compound construction cost issues faced by developers — though it was too early to say how much of an impact it would have.
At 220m high, the building will be among the tallest on the city’s west.
Ms Allison said one of the key ways to address this was through creating more favourable tax outcomes that would incentivise developers and potentially improve costs for homebuyers.
There was some good news for construction of CBD towers earlier this week, with a 748-residence student accommodation tower commencing works on Monday.
With 892 beds spread across the units, the 570 Little Bourke St site, on the corner of King St, will account for almost 10 per cent of the state’s 9,170 purpose-built student accommodation pipeline.
But it’s only a few hundred metres away from two more empty plots on King St that have languished so long that their developer owners were forced to turn the sites into public parks by the City of Melbourne.
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