Sky garden and solar facade: New-build ‘must-haves’ embodied in $1 billion mega project
Before the world knew what COVID-19 was, the project team behind Melbourne’s mammoth 435 Bourke Street development had designed a perfect scheme for the $1 billion Cbus Property project.
When the dust settled post-pandemic, that entire plan was thrown in the bin and work started all over again.
“What tenants want in their buildings had completely changed,” recalls Andrew Beasley, national director of office leasing at Colliers.
“We went back to the drawing board to totally rethink the needs and wants of the next generation. And it was everything – environmental considerations, aesthetics, a diversity of workspaces, flexibility and amenity.”
A key feature of the Cbus Property building is the jaw-dropped Sky Garden – a mammoth indoor-outdoor space spread between levels 20 and 22.
“There’s heavy landscaping, outdoor terraces, bookable rooms and communal spaces,” Beasley says. “It’s pretty special. We’ve gone to Singapore to look at some of the best-in-class over there for inspiration.”
Tenants want to cater to the shifting nature of work itself – which can be done at a desk, in a chill-out space, outside, in a cafe, or collaboratively in a project space with colleagues.
As employers grapple to lure staff back to the office, amenities in and around the workplace have become a big priority, Beasley says.
“There’s a large food and beverage focus,” he says. “The aim is to cater to workers during the day but to also generate activity after hours, rather than just have a stock-standard cafe that closes at 2pm.”
Environmental credentials are more important than ever, Beasley adds, with tenants keen to tick all of the environment, social and governance (ESG) boxes.
“It’s one of the first buildings in Australia to have a solar facade on it that will generate 20 per cent of the base building power,” he says. “The rest is fully renewable power. It’s all electric, so no gas whatsoever.”
Commonwealth Bank recently signed a pre-commitment for 15,000 square metres of the 62,500-square-metre building, marking the first such deal since the pandemic, he says.
Like many businesses, the bank has indicated its keenness for staff to return to the office – not just some of the time, but permanently.
“The approach we’ve taken is absolutely the way of the future,” Beasley adds. “Flight to quality is a real thing. It’s not just a buzzword.
“If you want your people back to the office, you’ve got to give them an environment they want to go to.
“I think what we’ll see is a lot of the lesser-grade buildings falling away. Some might have to be repurposed.”
