Lonsdale St heritage building to be turned into 22-storey office building

The building at 436-450 Lonsdale St was vacated in 2021 because it failed to meet fire safety regulations.

At a September 3 Future Melbourne Committee (FMC) meeting, the council granted a permit for a $135 million development that will retain only the facade of the original building.

Situated within the CBD’s legal precinct near Flagstaff Gardens, the site is protected by a heritage overlay due to its architectural significance and its history as a shared building for the state and federal taxation offices.

At the time of its closure, the building was occupied by the Supreme Court.

It was originally designed in the Neoclassical style by prominent Melbourne architects Oakley and Parkes in 1929.

Chief government architect Percy Everett made additions in the 1930s, creating the “stepped” effect which gives the building its Art Deco character.

The new plans propose the demolition of the majority of the building, leaving only the sandstone facade which includes the lobby and original entrance.

Speaking at the FMC meeting, Urbis town planner Billy Rebakis said the specialist court facilities housed in the building made adequate renovation difficult.

Typically, heritage regulations stipulate that new works should be set back at least eight to 10 metres from a preserved heritage facade.

However, this permit application has been lodged under certain provisions of the Melbourne Planning Scheme, which allow the Minister to vary these mandatory setbacks at their discretion, when a proposed work is projected to deliver significant contributions to the state’s economy.

Instead, this proposal states that development will be set back five metres from the building’s south boundary and 18 metres from its east boundary.

Heritage practitioner Peter Lovell advised that this exception should be made because it suited the design of this particular building.

Mr Lovell noted that when looking from the southern face of the building, there was a distinct change in architecture after the first five metres of the building.

While the first five metres feature sandstone and Art Deco design elements, Mr Lovell described the rear of the building as a “very pragmatic functional box of a building, with no articulation, no heritage itself.”

On August 24, a petition was launched by heritage building advocacy group Demolishing Melbourne, calling for the total preservation of the building.

“When thinking about historic buildings, it is critical that we consider the building to be more than just a façade,” petition organiser Louis Wyatt told CBD News.

A city of historic façades attached to tall, contemporary, towers provide only a limited understanding of the historic importance of any individual building, and drastically diminishes any legibility of the broader urban environment.

“As a government-led project, it would have been good to see a more sensitive design which showed greater consideration of the existing building. The project will only further entrench the precedent of facadism across Melbourne.”

Lord Mayor Nick Reece said he was pleased to see development proposals emerging around the legal precinct.

“I think it’s a really outstanding development proposal that’s before us here, and it should be, because the old taxation office is an Art Deco-Moderne classic of Melbourne,” Cr Reece said.

“So, anything that comes along to replace it needs to be absolutely first-rate so that in 100 years from now when people are looking at this site, they are still referring to it in glowing terms as we can about the old tax office.” •