In what is leaning towards a trend of ‘apartments above malls’, the Golden Age Group have launched plans for a $450 million apartment development above The Glen shopping centre.
This comes 14 months after Golden Age, lead by Jeff Xu, secured the ‘air-rights’ from The Glen co-owners, Vicinity Centres and Perron Group.
This will be the largest above-mall-development in Australia.
Mr Xu commented that, “We saw an opportunity to partner with Vicinity Centres and deliver a residential component to an existing shopping precinct in a way that's never been done before, making this project the first of its kind.”
The Golden Age apartment project will see the erection of three towers, allowing for 555 apartments. It will also produce a 4,000sqm sky garden as part of the platform supporting the towers.
Construction is due to begin in 2019. Upon completion, one-bedroom apartments are expected to start at $480,000, with three-bedroom apartments set to rise to $1.1 million.
Apartment development meets retail re-development
Mr Xu’s development will coincide with Vicinity’s $490 million retail rejuvenation at The Glen.
In early 2017 the managing director Angus McNaughton said "it is time that The Glen evolves to meet the changing needs of our customers,
"The New Glen will elevate the customer experience to create a boutique destination where food, fashion and people come together."
The mall is set to expand to include 240 new retail shops, a fresh food market hall, two dining precincts, a town square, the latest format David Jones, new mini majors and international brands.
Mixed-Use Malls Growing
Grant Kelly, the current managing director of Vicinity (succeeding Mr McNaughton), has made note of the ‘unrealised value’ in the land surrounding Vicinity’s shopping centres.
"A little bit of this comes from my own background, having worked in Asia, where space is very constrained,”
Sales growth within Asian malls has been very strong for "the very simple reason that due to space constraint the original development application had a tremendous amount of mixed use baked in.
"What we're talking about is not a paradigm shift for retail if you look at other parts of the world. It might be something that's relatively newer for Australia."
Earlier in the year, Vicinity announced their plans for a new $130 million hotel at their flagship Chadstone shopping centre.
Vicinity Centres Executive General Manager, Development, Carolyn Viney said “The hotel development is a key element of Chadstone’s masterplan. Our vision is to build upon Chadstone’s iconic status, and for the shopping centre and hotel to become one internationally-recognised lifestyle, entertainment and tourism destination.”
As part of Vicinity’s strategy, they plan to sell up to $1 billion worth of assets and focus on their flagship centres.
“You’ve got to, in a challenging environment, specialise more than you had to in the recent past,” Vicinity chief executive Grant Kelley told The Australian.
