Updated waterfront city

The City of Melbourne has endorsed an up-scaled revamp of developments on both sides of The District, including the under-construction Marriott Hotel.

The two sites, 28-38 Pearl River Rd and 3-43 Waterfront Way, were included in the Waterfront City Outline Development Plan 2003 which set a discretionary height limit of 25 metres. In 2008, the preferred building height for the area was raised to 45 metres.

The sites now await ministerial approval under the plan at 90.95 metres and 70.82 metres respectively and the decision could attract more developers to the area.

The Waterfront Way site, which is already under construction, will hold the future Marriott Hotel while the Pearl River Rd site will hold dwellings and office space.

A previous proposal by developer Capital Alliance for a 109-metre tower at the Waterfront Way site was refused by the Minister for Planning.

City of Melbourne chair of planning Cr Nicholas Reece said he hoped the resulting planning applications would be of high quality.

“I would expect that as a result of tonight’s decision we will now see some new applications coming forward for planning permits in this area and I want to emphasise that I do hope those new applications are of a very high quality,” Cr Reece said.

“I don’t want to see any more prefabricated concrete buildings in Docklands, I think we’ve had enough of those. The application before us is the next stage in the development of Waterfront City and the development plan that has been sometime in the making.”

“We’re talking about two sites moving from 25 metres to 90 metres on the south-west site and 70 on the south-east site so that is something that obviously the city wants to properly interrogate.”

“I think the changes the city is seeing at The District at the moment are very positive and it’s exciting to see what’s happening there. I think it’s going to add a lot to Docklands in terms of amenity and vibrancy.”

Capital Alliance applied to increase the heights as part of a broader set of new plans for the sites.