ApartmentsClare BurnettTue 09 Jun 26
Focus, Antipodean File Midrise Proposals for Melbourne’s Fitzroy
A low-scale office and car park at Fitzroy is being reimagined as an “exemplary” apartment development.
Focus Group Investments has filed plans with the Victorian Department of Transport and Planning for the project at 64-70 Hanover Street in the Brunswick Street activity centre.
Focus wants to develop a three-to-eight-storey building of 63 apartments and townhouses.
It would comprise a mix of studio, one, two, three and four-bedroom apartments, plus townhouses and duplexes.
The development, designed by SJB Architects, is of an “exemplary architectural standard”, according to the planning report submitted to the Department.
The site is occupied by a two-storey office building and a car park, but surrounded by heritage items in the South Fitzroy Precinct heritage overlay, which has well-preserved Victorian and inter-war buildings throughout.
The project responds to the “eclectic character” of Fitzroy and includes a ground floor commercial space, according to the application.
The built form has been designed so the highest eight-storey points adjoin a commercial area along Brunswick Street, preventing overshadowing, Focus’s report said.
Also at Fitzroy, Antipodean Land Developments is plotting another eight-storey residential development, this time comprising 13 three-bedroom units.
The project, at 11-13 Spring Street, would include a circular landscaped rooftop space on the seventh floor and would provide parking for 26 cars.
The proposal now before the Department of Transport and Planning would replace a two-storey warehouse and commercial building, as well as a former terrace house fronting Argyle Street.
Both buildings have been identified as contributory heritage places and were previously used for office space before becoming vacant.
The site, 2.5km from the Melbourne CBD, is near the Johnston-Nicholson streets tram stop.
The plans for the site replace a proposal submitted a decade ago for a seven-storey 16-unit project, which went before the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal in 2024 after the City of Yarra Council failed to determine the application.
VCAT refused to grant a permit. Two further proposals for the site were lodged, in 2015 and 2022. Planning permit amendment proposals were approved in 2022 and construction began later that year.
However, just one stage was completed. As part of those works some of the buildings on site were demolished, before the approval expired in December last year.
The current proposals build on those plans, but are of a “much higher quality design”, according to Antipodean.
