Go-ahead for $500m project in Melbourne Docklands

LISTED Singaporean group Hiap Hoe has won planning approval from the Victorian government for its $500 million-plus hotel and apartment development in Melbourne’s Docklands.

The site, at 6-22 Pearl River Road, was approved last week and is likely to result in a project with 461 apartments and a hotel with 320 suites.

Starwood Hotels and Resorts Worldwide will manage the hotel under the Four Points brand, with the hotel to be named Four Points by Sheraton Melbourne Docklands.

Construction is expected to begin early next year. Hiap Hoe is already marketing the apartments in Singapore and Shanghai, as well as in Melbourne and Sydney.

The designer of the project is dKO Architecture. Its director, Koos de Keijzer, said two residential towers were planned, each with a 5 degree tilt in them. One of them would lean towards the water while the other would tilt away from it.

The towers would also be artistic with colour schemes, with one of them white with light windows and the other black with dark windows.

“It’s probably going to be the biggest sculptural tower ever built in Australia,” Mr de Keijzer said.

Hiap Hoe has bought aggressively in Australia in the past couple of years. It has a site on Lonsdale Street with potential to build a 350-room hotel and 658 apartments.

It also owns a site on Melbourne’s 206 Bourke Street, and also bought a Perth site in February for $90m.

Source:  The Australian - 3rd June 2014