Churches of Christ to Develop $60m Residential Tower in Alphington

The Churches of Christ have submitted a development application for a $60 million multi-storey, mixed-use building in the Melbourne suburb of Alphington.

The Properties Corporation of the Churches of Christ paid $5 million for the existing two-level building at 582 Heidelberg Road in 2005.

Tract Consultants submitted the development application on behalf of the Church, for a 13-storey tower comprising 172 dwellings – 165 apartments and seven three-bedroom townhouses – and 982sq m of office space on the first and ground floors.

The Churches of Christ offices are currently located at the 3729sq m Heidelberg Road site.

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Designed by DKO architects, the building will also come with two separate levels of communal open space and two levels of basement parking, featuring 264 car and 148 bicycle spaces.

The proposed tower will host seven townhouses on the ground floor, with 319sq m of commercial floor space and a gym. Level one will comprise 663sq m of commercial space and car parking, with apartments starting on level two.

“A ten-storey building sits above the podium structure. The building acknowledges the desired prominence of the built form on the Amcor site across the road on Chandler Highway,” the proposal said.

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The site is located at the intersection of Heidelberg Road and Chandler Highway within the City of Yarra, less than eight kilometres from Melbourne’s CBD.

In a pre-application meeting for the project, council acknowledged community sensitivities to development on the site in light of a “recent history of action and opposition to planning for the Amcor site”.

The site sits adjacent to one of Melbourne’s largest urban infill projects, the $2 billion Glenvill-developed housing estate in inner-city Alphington. YarraBend.