Metrics Reveals 900-Home Precinct for North Melbourne

The covers have come off a plan to raise a major precinct in a neglected former industrial pocket in North Melbourne.

Metrics Credit Partners is working on proposals for the scheme at Kensington, nearly doubling the number of apartments in a a previously mooted but “unviable” plan.

Fresh plans have been filed by Alfred and Boundary Pty Ltd, a company associated with Metrics Credit Partners managing partners Andrew Tremain, Justin Hynes and Andrew Lockhart, with Victoria’s Department of Transport and Planning. 

The project, which is being managed by Tango Projects, is centred on a site in the Macaulay precinct of Kensington at 59-101 Alfred Street and 103-117 Boundary Road.

Metrics reportedly acquired the 1.5ha “shovel-ready” site at the end of 2024. The consolidated development parcel is believed to be one of the largest privately held development sites at Macaulay. 

The Tapestry Project, the previously approved project attached to the site, was put forward by Orb Property Partners.

The vacant site is approved for 519 homes, however, Metrics is planning to nearly double that. 

A report prepared by Tract Consultants said that it “cannot be understated that the existing approvals for the site are not viable to be delivered in the current market”.

Metrics Credit Partners’s proposal for the project, dubbed the Alfred Quarter, details 943 homes. Sixteen per cent of its total housing yield would be affordable, compared to just five homes under the approved plans. 

The apartments would be a mix of studios to three-bedroom apartments, and parking would be provided for 503 cars in above-ground podium levels. 

▲ A rendering of one of the trio of buildings planned by Metrics Capital Partners for its Alfred Quarter.

The precinct would also contain a diverse range of typologies, including build-to-rent, build-to-sell and affordable housing. 

Metrics plans to deliver the apartments in three mixed-use buildings, designed by Fender Katsalidis and Cera Stribley Architects. 

The first would be a part-12, part-16-storey build-to-sell apartment building of 307 units. 

The plans also include a supermarket and three retail premises on the ground floor.

The second, central mixed-use building would be a 15-storey build-to-rent tower of 336 homes plus a gym and coworking office, while the the third would rise16 storeys on the western part of the site. Metrics envisions the latter as build-to-sell and affordable with community space on the ground floor. 

It would also revitalise a “dilapidated” heritage building on the site, the Farrell’s Stables, to be used as a cafe. 

Strategic opportunity

In the heart of the Macaulay urban renewal precinct, 3km north-west of the Melbourne CBD, Metrics presented the plans as an “immense strategic opportunity” to deliver high-quality homes that would contribute to urban consolidation strategies in the City of Melbourne. 

Metrics’s proposal said that broader market confidence to invest in Macaulay was currently “soft”, but the development “presents as a significant opportunity to send a clear and strong message that Macaulay is open for business”. 

The project would revitalise an area dominated by commercial and industrial use, including large format warehouses. 

▲ The trio of towers would house nearly double the number of apartments previously approved for the North Melbourne site.

The site is within 400m of Macaulay and Flemington Bridge train stations in the suburb where residential projects are on the rise, including a 276-unit, 12-storey project at 139-149 Boundary Road. 

Metrics proposes a 1040sq m central plaza for the project, which would be given to the City of Melbourne, as well as internal pedestrian links and road improvements. 

Metrics said the plans were a major capital investment with an estimated construction value of more than $500 million, providing a stimulus to the economy with a four to six-year construction program. 

Metrics Capital Partners has a number of major developments to its credit, a number as partners with such developers as Billbergia, with whom it joined forces last year for a major Sydney CBD debut project—an 80-storey tower. 

It also called in several projects last year to ensure greater control over the developments, including the $300-million Nautique project at Rushcutters Bay, also in Sydney, and another on Macquarie Street revamping the Sir Stamford Hotel.