Ageing office towers could be knocked down to create apartments, schools

Old office towers could be demolished to make way for new apartments or be refurbished to create retirement villages and childcare centres as pressure mounts on the state government to revitalise the city.

Ageing office towers in the CBD could be knocked down to make way for new apartments or be refurbished to create retirement villages, childcare centres, schools or science labs as pressure mounts on the government to revitalise the city.

The Allan government has left the door open to demolishing office buildings in its quest to build 800,000 homes in a decade as concerns are raised about the viability of retrofitting office buildings to create thousands of new homes in the CBD.

The government is exploring whether 86 city buildings identified by architecture firm Hassell and the Property Council could be converted to between 10,000 to 12,000 homes amid the state’s housing crisis.

But Principal at Hassell Ingrid Bakker said the 86 were just part of a pool of 1323 ageing office buildings, both vacant and non-vacant, that could be transformed “hospitality venues, science labs, schools, allied health services, retirement villages or childcare centres, depending on their size and what best serves the local community”.

“The sky’s the limit for these office buildings,” she said.

“We’d like to be able to breathe new life into these buildings.”

Lord Mayor Nick Reece (right) and City of Melbourne Councillor Roshena Campbell who is running for Deputy Lord Mayor outside 1 Exhibition Street which was converted to apartments in the 1990s. Picture: Supplied

Planning Minister Sonya Kilkenny on Thursday acknowledged it would not be feasible to retrofit some of the office buildings, revealing that the government was considering whether knocking down some of the office buildings would be a better option.

“It’s possible, again, that comes down to commercial viability, and it would be a matter for the industry and for developers,” she said.

“Though, in knocking down buildings, there are environmental issues.”

Victorian Executive Director of the Housing Industry Association Keith Ryan said increasingly stringent building standards, particularly energy efficiency standards, would likely shrink the current pool of office space that could be retrofitted.

“I suspect that yes the number of projects where it will be feasible to really retrofit is going to be small,” he said.

New data released this month found Melbourne’s CBD has the highest office vacancy rate in the nation, with vacancy rates soaring to 18 per cent, up from 16.6 per cent in January.

Planning Minister Sonya Kilkenny said it would not be feasible to retrofit some office buildings. Picture: Nicki Connolly

Property Council Victorian executive director Cath Evans said the Allan government should be “examining all policy and regulatory options to incentivise owners to reinvest in their existing assets rather than tear them down”.

“The potential embodied carbon retention of conversions and the resultant benefit for net-zero targets are huge,” she said.

Ms Evans welcomed converting under-utilised office stock into other amenities such as biotechnology and laboratory fit-outs, pointing to a key project by Australian Unity that transformed old office space in Albert Park into retirement village, The Alba.

It comes as Lord Mayor Nick Reece announced a $4 million election commitment to fast-track the conversion of city offices to affordable homes, with hopes that providing financial incentives for developers would lead to 4000 new apartments in the CBD.

Fellow Lord Mayoral candidate Arron Wood was quick to attack the plan on Thursday, saying while it “sounds good on paper … the reality is much more complex”.