New plans have been submitted to the City of Stonnington for the site at 189 Toorak Road, outlining Melbourne-based developer V-Leader’s vision to create a $90-million premium mixed-use office and retail hub.

Designed by global interdisciplinary design practice Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM), the alternate vision will transform the structure into an 11-storey mixed-use building with over 2,000sqm of retail space over three levels and nearly 3,000sqm of office space across 7 storeys above. SOM had earlier collaborated on V-Leader’s $450-million premium office development at 600 Lonsdale Street, Melbourne.

Keeping in mind the trend towards quality and considered design seen across the commercial office sector, V-Leader seeks to bring the high-end, tailored offering of recent CBD projects to smaller, more intimate office spaces. V-Leader will also move their headquarters to the new development upon completion.

Paying homage to the historically significant Hotel Claremont, the development’s upper floors will be set back from the street frontage and the site’s original façade restored to ensure a subtle, respectful interaction with the bustling Toorak Road while establishing a sensitive and considered relationship between old and new. The upper floors are designed to ‘step back’ to visually minimise the bulk of the site. Cascading south-facing terraces will be carved into the expressive structural forms, integrating a sense of nature into the working environment.

“In developing the scheme for this site, we identified a lack of a high-end, contemporary offering for smaller structures – for example, private family offices – which often sit within traditional, somewhat aged builds. We wanted to reflect the premium amenity and design seen in projects such as 600 Lonsdale within more intimate office environments,” V-Leader’s managing director Andy Zhang explained.

“Having spent the last few years focusing on Melbourne’s CBD, we look forward to bringing transformative, desirable office spaces that accommodate modern working practices to the city-fringe market,” he added.

Observing how the revised vision for the site was a balancing act of several considerations, SOM design partner Scott Duncan said, “Designing 189 Toorak Road was as much of an exercise in reduction as much as it was addition. To preserve the grandeur of the South Yarra Coffee Palace, the volume of the building was carved away to produce a stepped mass, allowing it to recede from view at the highstreet level. The undulating forms that float above the historic building reflect a sustainable approach made possible through cutting edge structural engineering – where materials are significantly reduced down to the bare essentials.”

“In this way, adaptive reuse combined with restrained addition results in a significant decrease in embodied carbon, and a visual balance of old and new.”

Construction on the project is scheduled to commence in Q3 2023 following the approval of development plans.

Branko Miletic

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