Hotel & HospitalityClare BurnettMon 13 Jul 26
Council Pushes Back on 160-Key Melbourne Airport Hotel Proposal
Two “factory-like” and “utilitarian” buildings at Melbourne Airport would be transformed into a 164-key hotel under plans filed with the state.
The proposal by SMA Projects outlines an airport hotel at 13 International Square, Tullamarine, about 22km north of the Melbourne CBD in the City of Hume.
The project, now before the Victorian Department of Transport and Planning, puts forward a “simple, efficient tower” of eight-storeys with a ground-floor podium and seven levels of accommodation.
There would be 37 on-site car parking spaces, as well as a business centre and guest facilities including a gym.
The business centre would offer “basic, small scale conference facilities”, and the proposed hotel has been designed “to the requirements of a widely recognised provider” which has not been revealed.
The site is surrounded by car rental and light industrial uses in the privately owned and managed International Square business park.
Designed by Hayball, the hotel is expected to create up to 30 ongoing jobs whule the developer anticipates construction of the hotel would create about 150 jobs.
However, City of Hume planners have already indicated they were “not willing to entertain approving the proposal” due to land use conflict in the industrial neighbourhood.
There is a Mantra hotel nearby and another hotel has been approved for the site behind it, at 4-6 Trade Park Drive, although the permit has not yet been acted upon.
“The permit applicant drew the council officers’ attention to the site being in a Commercial 2, and not an Industrial Zone... and the proposition that there is already another residential hotel operating successfully and without conflicts in the neighbourhood,” planning documents said.
Despite council objections, the proposal is being lodged via the DTP pathway given its alignment with state planning objectives related to tourism accommodation, and “efficient use of serviced land proximate to Melbourne Airport,” according to planning documents.
The building had been designed with this light industrial locale in mind, it said.
SMA Projects’s airport hotel “aims to be quietly confident rather than overtly expressive, reinforcing the project’s role as a supporting piece of infrastructure within a highly functional urban setting.”
In its latest report, Melbourne Airport said that 28.5 million passengers travelled through the transport hub in the 2025-26 year, which was up 3.8 per cent on the previous year.
Construction is under way on the first stage of the multi-billion-dollar Melbourne Airport Rail, which will develop nearby Sunshine into a “superhub” with capacity for 1000 trains per day.
