Lifeline for Scuppered South Perth Highrise Proposal

Two former navy engineers have thrown a lifeline to a seemingly sunk luxury tower project at South Perth.

To be considered by the Metro Inner Development Assessment Panel on January 14 is a City of South Perth recommendation that impending owners of The Pearl project, Josh Letcher and Dan Mendonca, be given an extra year to start building.

Plans for the $180-million, 27-floor skyscraper went belly up last year when original developer and owner of the project’s dual block, Perth-based Dragon Century, went into liquidation.

Letcher and his former Royal Australian Navy colleague Mendonca recently formed a company called Velentes to prise The Pearl from its sunken shell.

Velentes is in the final stages of buying the project’s combined 2976sq m block that fronts Lyall Street and Melville Parade.

Letcher told The Urban Developer that full settlement would likely occur by the end of June 2026 and a feasibility study had confirmed the tower could be built for as little as $129 million.

“Our goal is to provide good-priced apartments with high-quality finishings that provide residents with the quality they pay for,” he said.

Conversely, The Pearl’s two 700sq m penthouses—each with a rooftop swimming pool, cinema and wine cellar—will be among the largest and most luxurious in WA.

Resuscitating the project has involved cost-saving alterations developed by Mandy Leung of Perth-based Space Collective Architects that were approved by the city in October 2025 after no public objections were received.

Jettisoned was an underground carpark that would have been expensive to build given the proximity of the water table of the Swan River.

Replacing commercial floor space on Levels 1, 2, 4 and 5 with high-end, membership-based short-stay accommodation would slash the number of required carparks, which have been increased on Level 2.

Letcher said the original blueprints developed by Perth-based Hillam Architects and approved by the assessment panel in 2020 would otherwise remain largely unchanged.

He said Velentes was in the final stages of securing $7 million to $8 million of equity funding to get The Pearl to construction stage.

“After that, once construction funding is achieved, we anticipate a 2 to 2½-year build,” he said.

Letcher, a former RAN mechanical engineer, founded ASX-listed Allotropes Diamonds and advanced its acquisition by ASX-listed Newfield Resources, the board of which he was appointed to in August 2025.

He met Mendonca, a former RAN marine technician who lives in South Perth, while both worked at HMAS Stirling on Garden Island offshore from Rockingham, 50km south of Perth.

“We’re very South Perth focused, and the projects that follow we’d like to be in South Perth,” Letcher said.

He said the paradigm had shifted “100 per cent beyond” the local opposition that dogged residential towers in South Perth 10 to 15 years ago.

▲ Dan Mendonca and Josh Letcher are seeking an extension on the approval for the South Perth project.

“These projects bring a lot more benefit to the area than what people originally thought,” he said.

“The cafe strip, the foreshore are busy—nice busy; it’s amazing.”

Letcher said The Pearl would be Velentes’ flagship project.

“It’s our first project and it’s ambitious but the teams we’re planning to use are some of the best in the industry and it’s not their first project,” he said.

“From this, we want to become a project developer.

“Velentes will play an active role in sourcing local and international suppliers.”

If the assessment panel agrees with the city when the panel meets later this month, The Pearl’s substantial start date will be extended from February 20 to the same date in 2027.