Designs locked in for new Larrakeyah apartment complex

Finishing touches are being put on a new residential development proposed for just outside the city. Read what is being planned.

A plan to develop public housing in a new inner-suburban residential development has been scrapped.

A previous plan to include public, affordable or social housing within the proposed development at the old Asti Hotel site has been rolled back.

Another application has been lodged with authorities for the proposed multi-level residential development on Smith Street in Larrakeyah.

Cunnington Ross planning and consulting and Joondanna Investments have applied to develop 119 rooms in two buildings – one 11 storeys, the other 10 storeys – at the old Asti Hotel site.

The developments will consist of 56 residential dwellings and 63 serviced apartments between them.

The proposed Asti hotel residential development has been updated.

A large 1800sq m communal gardens will separate the two tower buildings.

The development will include an administration reception area, communal gym and swimming pool, bicycle parking plant and services with vehicle access to three basement carparks with a total of 249 carparking spaces.

The site is zoned tourist commercial.

“The proponent has advised that a portion of the residential component of previous iterations was intended for occupation as public, affordable and/or social housing in response to an Expression of Interest released by the Northern Territory Department of Families, Housing and Communities,” the latest development application said.

“The ability to include such housing within the proposed development no longer exists, and the proponent has confirmed that there is no longer any intention to include public, affordable and/or social housing within the proposal.”

Former Immigration minister Chris Bowen speaks to media outside the Asti Hotel in Darwin in 2011.

If the development goes ahead it will end years of uncertainty surrounding the old Asti Hotel site.

Formerly a popular visitor stop for intra-Territory travellers, the hotel’s popularity fell away and it was eventually used as an overflow centre for asylum seekers in the early 2010s before being demolished.

The Asti and site has been owned by Darwin’s La Pira family since the early 1970s.

Planned for Smith Street near Packard Place and Montoro Courts, the developers have had a number of attempts to refine the development.

The application lodged last year was for 44 residential dwellings and 47 serviced apartments across the two towers.

A street-level view of the proposed Asti development.

An application to develop the site was first lodged in 2015 for 110 hotel, multiple dwellings and serviced apartments in six, eight and 13 storey buildings.

The hotel has also gone in the latest development, replaced in building one by 18 one-bedroom and 38 two-bedroom residential apartments and in building two by 63 serviced apartments consisting of 10 one-bedroom serviced apartments, 45 two-bedroom serviced apartments and 10 three-bedroom serviced apartments.

Each dwelling has an identical floor layout of an entry porch screening area, open plan living, dining and kitchen areas, bedrooms and balconies.

A number of apartments have been designed as accessible units, along with a high number of accessible carparking spaces in both the basement and ground levels.

The Troppo Architect designed development uses openings and tropical building methods including raw cladding and timber, timber-looking screening materials, natural colours, shading and feature panel projections.

Landscaping is concentrated in the communal gardens and within the setback areas, including locally suitable species including banyans, eucalypts and palms.

Originally published as Designs locked in for new Larrakeyah apartment complex