NAB chooses Brookfield building on Bourke Street, Melbourne, as its next home
In one of the largest single-office tenancy moves in Melbourne, National Australia Bank has chosen an $800 million office project on Bourke Street being developed by Brookfield Property Partners as its next home.
Preliminary work is in progress on the mid-town site at 405 Bourke Street as Brookfield pushed hard to win the bank’s tenancy.
Construction is expected to get under way in full this year on the property that Brookfield has been hoping to develop for the past decade.
NAB could occupy almost all of the new tower, which will have 29 levels of office space, comprising 66,000 square metres.
The office storeys will rise above three levels of retail, just one block down from the Bourke Street mall.
Designed by Woods Bagot, the building will have 2350-square-metre floor plates.
Brookfield will be racing to complete the building by 2020, when NAB’s tenancy at 500 Bourke Street expires. NAB occupies the entirety of that ISPT-owned building.
The big four bank had also been considering an alternative proposal by Charter Hall on Lonsdale Street at the other end of the city.
Instead Charter Hall will now look to hook tenants including Japanese-controlled advertising powerhouse Dentsu, along with RMIT University, which have both short-listed the Lonsdale Street site.
The Brookfield tenancy was brokered by Knight Frank’s Hamish Sutherland. Both Brookfield and Knight Frank declined to comment.
As news of its plan to move to the Brookfield development deal raced through the market on Friday, NAB declined to confirm it, issuing a boilerplate statement.
“We continually review our property and workplace requirements to ensure we provide the best environments for our customers and people,” a spokesperson said. “These processes remain commercial in confidence.”
