Go-ahead for new housing Precinct

A $250 million apartment complex, dubbed Precinct, will be built in Victoria Street, Abbotsford, just a short walk from the Yarra River.

The five-building complex, with a five-star energy rating, will be on the site of the former Going Going Gone shop.

Salvo Property Group bought the site from the retailer for $22 million two years ago.

The project will be built in two stages, with the first stage comprising 230 apartments.

The finished complex will have 450 apartments, a mix of one, two and three-bedroom dwellings. A third of the site 3000 square metres will be landscaped.

A permit has been granted for the project, which received only eight objections. It is next to the controversial $250 million, 586-apartment project being developed by Hamton, which generated 1260 objections, most of them from Kew and Hawthorn residents.

Construction of Precinct, due to start in September, is expected to take two years.

The site is well located on the Victoria Street tram line, with the Victoria Gardens shopping centre a short walk away, the Yarra River and its bike path 100 metres away down the two side roads Grosvenor and Flockhart streets and the bridge over the Yarra to Yarra Bend Park just around the corner.

Salvo's executive chairman, Mario Salvo, told Business Day that Precinct was designed to foster a community atmosphere, with the apartments surrounding a very large communal landscaped garden.

"Many of the ground-floor apartments have garden access through the central courtyard," he said. The idea was to give the development the feel of a combination of townhouses rather than a big apartment building.

The internal courtyard will have a 25-metre swimming pool and gymnasium at one end, and a cafe at the other. There will be lots of bike racks.

The architect is DKO, whose principal Koos de Keijzer is a former Mirvac architect who designed the Melburnian and Yarra's Edge in Docklands. Landscaping will be by LBA (Laurence Blyton and Associates) the company behind the landscape design at Crown Casino and Freshwater Place.

Mr Salvo said the design ensured that all apartments enjoyed an abundance of natural light. "The views over the city are wonderful, as we expected, but we were also surprised at how beautiful the views from the other side over Kew and Hawthorn will be."