Why Chris Lucas’ new top-end Melbourne venue won’t be a private club
Chris Lucas is standing at the top end of Melbourne’s Bourke Street, explaining why he recently bought three historic buildings there and outlining his $45 million plan to create a European-styled entertainment complex complete with restaurant, cigar bar and basement supper club.
One of the city’s most vocal critics of former premier Daniel Andrews, Lucas says the city he loves was smashed during the long COVID-19 lockdowns and is still struggling to recover. National office vacancy rates fell to 14.6 per cent for the six months to July, but Melbourne’s rate increased to a record high of 18 per cent, the Property Council says.
Hundreds of Australia Post workers are among those who left the city this week, as it officially moved from its Bourke Street headquarters to join others in the Burnley, Cremorne, Richmond precinct at the south-east edge of the city. Other companies that have migrated include Domain, Seek, REA, Car Group, Uber, Reece, MYOB, Disney and Bunnings.
Lucas, the man behind some of Melbourne’s best-loved restaurants, including Society, Kisumé and Chin Chin, will open Carlotta, a 120-seat Mediterranean restaurant, in the heart of Canberra soon.
He says hospitality is the only way to save our cities.
“The cities have suffered since COVID-19, Sydney a bit but especially in Melbourne – it is struggling to find its mojo again,” Lucas tells AFR Weekend.
But with crisis comes opportunity. The city daytime exodus means many heritage buildings are being snapped up for nighttime hospitality. Lucas bought his three buildings for about $19 million, although the whole project – to be called Batard – will cost close to $45 million.
Sydney hospitality billionaire Justin Hemmes spent $17.5 million to buy an art deco building in the laneway around the corner. The O’Brien Group has a $20 million plan to transform the Jobs Warehouse on Bourke Street into a European-style food and arts drawcard.
Across the road from Batard, in what was the Metro Nightclub from 1987, is the new Le Méridien Melbourne, a 12-storey hotel from Marriott Bonvoy that opened last year.
“I’m taking more risk today than I have ever done because hospitality is in turmoil but [commercial] property is down and there are more deals to be done,” says Lucas, who will be among the speakers at The Australian Financial Review Property Summit next week.
Melbourne Mayor Nicholas Reece says the new developments will lift the classic drawcards in Melbourne’s east end, including The Princess Theatre, restaurants Florentino and Pellegrini’s, Hill of Content bookshop and the Windsor Hotel.
“The top of Bourke Street is having a moment,” Reece tells AFR Weekend.
Reece is seeking to be re-elected as mayor next month as he battles pro-business rival Arron Wood, Liberal-backed candidate Mariam Riza and former AFL player Anthony Koutoufides, offering workers free coffee to bring the buzz back to the city.
Lucas says Batard is a seven-year labour of love which will be anchored by a French restaurant that will bear the project’s name, a rooftop cigar bar and a basement supper club.
“We will be doing this beautiful European terrace, cigar bar, amazing wine lists, it will be amazing,” he says.
“It’s a combination of my love for France, this building just lends itself to that, and there is also a gap in the market here, there is nothing like this.”
The development has been inspired by some of the private clubs housed in historic buildings in Paris and London, and Lucas says Batard will be the equivalent – but for everyone.
“The closest thing I can probably draw a comparison to is Maison Estelle in Mayfair, London. It is in a historic five-level building with multiple bars, events and restaurants,” Lucas says, revealing his plans in depth for the first time.
“Maison Estelle is a private club and a lot of people have asked me ‘why don’t I make it a private club?’. But I’ve grown up an Aussie and don’t like the idea of being exclusionary. It has a bit of a smell about it. It’s not Australian, it is not even modern. Maybe it makes sense in London which has a 1000-year history of clubs, but not here.”
Private clubs are making a comeback. The developer Ross Pelligra has secured the private London-based wine club 67 Pall Mall as a tenant at the former Esanda House nearby, which he bought for $130 million in 2022.
The other big trend is that Melbourne’s vacancy rate is worse among B-grade buildings and developers are focussing on premium office property to draw workers back to the city. The only way to make them work, it seems, is to offer premium, state-of-the-art office towers, complete with a hospitality offering.
A little further down Bourke Street, the half owner of the Southern Cross towers that housed Australia Post’s staff is giving it a makeover and new name, East End Place.
Lucas is working with Cbus Property on a hospitality precinct at its $1 billion skyscraper at 435 Bourke Street where he will open two more restaurants, one Chinese and the other Mediterranean. Its tenants will include Commonwealth Bank and law firm Baker McKenzie.
