New addition to Little Collins St

By Marco Holden Jeffery

A 27-storey boutique commercial office building at 130 Little Collins St has been approved by the City of Melbourne.

Developed by Golden Age Group, the state-of-the-art building would combine retail and office space in a design emphasising sustainability, health and well-being.

Golden Age Group managing director Jeff Xu said the development would lead the way in post-pandemic office design as companies retain aspects of remote working and shift away from large-scale office spaces.

“The typical commercial building has been turned on its head as a result of COVID; businesses have realised they can work efficiently outside of the corporate environment and they no longer want to share with hundreds of other tenants,” he said.

“Instead, we’re foreseeing a preference towards more boutique floorplans as a result of businesses scaling down their requirements for an office, coupled with something that greater emphasises lifestyle.”

Designed by a team of Cox Architecture, Hecker Guthrie and Jack Merlo, the building would combine sunlit open office space and a dedicated business centre with private end of trip facilities, garden terraces, and premium food and beverage offerings throughout.

Xu dubbed the development “more akin to a lifestyle hotel design than a typical commercial office tower”, signalling a trend for office spaces as more lifestyle-driven and less corporate as the city’s white-collar workforce continues to work from home.

The street-level facade of the building would speak to the heritage design of the its neighbours on Little Collins St.

Golden Age Group were targeting several five-star sustainability ratings before the building’s expected completion in 2023.

The developers were also behind other recent CBD buildings such as the 75-storey Victoria One skyscraper and the 60-storey residential Collins House, as well as Box Hill’s Sky One, the tallest residential building outside the CBD.

Golden Age Group purchased the site from the Uniting Church in 2019, who had their Victorian and Tasmanian headquarters at the address since 1967.

The project would launch to market in the next few months •