Piccolo Files Plans for $120m Fitzroy Apartment Tower

Boutique developer Piccolo is readying its next development, putting plans forward for a $120-million apartment project in Fitzroy.

The 49-apartment tower is planned for a 1900sq m site on the corner of Gore and Argyle streets after the developer outlaid $20 million in August for three neighbouring sites.

The eight-storey apartment building, to be called 385 Gore Street, will replace a 1200sq m Australia Post distribution centre and a double-storey home, all of which will be demolished.

The “high-end” apartment complex will also offer two levels of basement car parking for 72 cars and 55 on-site bicycle spaces as well as six ground-level visitor spaces.

Piccolo has turned to architecture firm Woods Bagot for the project after a number of successful collaborations including Garden House, a 46-apartment project in Carlton, and Elwood House, a 30-apartment project in Elwood.

The developer’s Gore Street project will include 26 two-bedroom and 23 three-bedroom apartments.

It has been designed to mirror the suburb’s bricolage of buildings from the Victorian and early Edwardian eras.

At the centre of the development will be a north-south axial breezeway, splitting the development to “break down its scale and massing” and articulate the building into “eastern and western forms”.

Piccolo said it had pursued the site due to its central location in Fitzroy, its connection to tram and road networks and that it was within 400m of Smith, Brunswick and Johnston streets.

The development will be bound by a single-storey warehouse to the west and a series of private open spaces to double- and triple-storey terrace dwellings on Kerr and Gore streets as well as a lane to the site’s north.

The building will be to scale with a number of nearby buildings varying from single-storey dwellings and warehouses up to 10-storey, mixed-use buildings with commercial at street level and residential above.

Like most of its neighbouring apartment buildings and similarly scaled projects scattered across Fitzroy, the project’s built form will extend to the full site extents at its lower levels and then set back above the street wall.

The development would join a number of luxury apartment buildings that have been built or are in advanced planning in and around Fitzroy on the northern edge of the Melbourne CBD.

Nearby at 71-75 Argyle Street, Piccolo’ sold out Fitzroy House project, comprising 34 apartments and commercial space at the ground level, is nearing completion.

Last month, SMA Projects lodged plans for a 65-apartment development on the site of a former theatre and television studio at 84-104 Johnston Street.

Melbourne developer DealCorp has also partnered with US hotel chain The Standard to open its first Australian property on the corner of Rose and Fitzroy streets.