After several years and 11 bidders that included some of the largest names in property, Mirvac has been chosen as the preferred bidder for the Treasury Square project in the City of Melbourne.
While CBUS and Mirvac were both selected as the two preferred bidders to buy and develop the land in May 2020, Mirvac has now been chosen for the $3-billion project.
The 1.4ha site is near the corner of Spring and Flinders Streets at the eastern edge of the Melbourne CBD and is owned by VicTrack.
The land that runs alongside Flinders Street railyards to the southern edges of Wellington Street was subdivided by the City of Melbourne as land zoned for Capital City building.
Eleven bidders competed for the site with the original shortlist of four in January 2020 also including Brookfield and a Dexus-John Holland partnership alongside CBUS and Mirvac.
In November 2021, City of Melbourne councillor Rohan Leppert raised the concern that it was one of the few sites in the city with no urban design controls under the planning scheme and that the-then planning minister Richard Wynne should address the matter.
The design put forward in 2020 was for three glass-clad towers on the site, each about 20 storeys high with a mix of high-end apartments and commercial office space.
It may now take 12 months to finalise a design for the site and 10 years to deliver. The project needs a deck over the railyards, transport lines and other infrastructure before any towers can be built.
“As the development is proposed to take place above a busy rail corridor, there are a range of complex technical issues being resolved as part of the design process,” a VicTrack spokesperson told The Urban Developer.
“We continue to work with the preferred bidder and our transport partners to develop this prime site into a new commercial and residential precinct.”
Any final design will need to be approved by the relevant planning authorities who will consider planning controls to protect the Yarra River and Birrarung Marr from overshadowing.
Mirvac declined to comment.
The developer’s Heritage Lanes project in Brisbane CBD was recently recognised as the first in Australia to receive the new 6-Star Green Star Buildings rating.
