Culinary tsar Lucas ties knot with property giant Cbus in new city tower

Two new restaurants run by culinary king Chris Lucas in Cbus’ glittering new Bourke Street office tower will give the building super fund a competitive edge in the fierce struggle to attract blue chip tenants to an empty city office tower.

Lucas is poised to open new Chinese and Mediterranean restaurants in Cbus Property’s swanky new $1 billion office tower at 435 Bourke Street, Melbourne, where they will occupy 1300 square metres of the tower’s retail space looking out on Bourke Street and the laneway on McKillop Street.

Cbus boss Adrian Pozzo, Chris Lucas and Bates Smart architect Cian Davis check the under-construction office tower at 435 Bourke Street, Melbourne.Credit: Penny Stephens

Lucas is working with Cbus Property and architect Bates Smart to bring “a sense of cool sophistication” to the midtown tower which has been slow to attract tenant precommitments to its 48 floors.

The owners of Melbourne’s commercial office towers are battling a post-pandemic shift to flexible working which has severely reducing big firms’ desire for new digs just as a glut of space makes its way into the market.

Lucas runs a string of CBD restaurants.

He already has two venues ensconced in blue-chip office towers – Grill Americano at 101 Collins Street and Yakimono at 80 Collins Street – and has well-developed views on how the city’s gleaming office buildings need to use their space.

“You’ve got to think beyond food courts because base-level food and beverage – that part of the market is being well served. The tenants in aspirational buildings want better outcomes,” Lucas said.

“Having end-of-trip facilities and a good cafe isn’t enough to tantalise workers back to the workplace – it’s cool bars and restaurants that bring them back to the city,” he said.

Lucas’ freedom to work with the architect and completely redesign his allocated retail space in Cbus’ building was a key condition for working on the project.

“We redesigned the whole public areas so you feel you are in two different buildings. At night-time, you will feel like you are going into a restaurant and not a workplace.”

The tower, perched on the corner of Queen Street at the gateway to the city’s legal district, is just coming out of the ground and will include a slew of sustainable features, from the way it is constructed through to its energy-generating “solar skin”. Lucas’ kitchens will be all electric.

The Commonwealth Bank has committed to taking 25 per cent of the building and legal firm Baker McKenzie will move into 3600 square metres over three levels. That leaves 21 levels to fill at a time when office workers are reluctantly returning to their workplaces.

For Cbus boss Adrian Pozzo, the restaurants will help attract tenants to the building while adding more amenity to the midtown precinct.

“We are trying to provide a one-stop shop with amenity and office. We’ve got to get people back into the office. We’re at about three days a week now – four would be good,” Pozzo said.

With so few new office buildings under construction in the CBD, he’s confident those extra floors will start to fill up as the tower emerges. It’s scheduled for completion in late 2026.

For Lucas, there are advantages to being a corporate tenant, but that hasn’t stopped him from being a canny property investor. He has spent $55.4 million on CBD properties in the past six years, some of which house his own dining establishments.

Chris Lucas in his Melbourne restaurant Chin Chin.Credit: Arsineh Houspian

Two derelict buildings at 19-29 Bourke Street, formerly the Society restaurant, are under reconstruction and will reopen later this year as Batard.

“For me, it’s a great opportunity to acquire buildings that are a bit undervalued and take on the challenge of brining them back to life. It’s a pretty risky business,” he said.

“I’m no guru property guy. I just love old buildings and love to create restaurants in them.”

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