Marvell
Street

A four-level building of apartments over ground-floor retail in Byron Bay, a $38m project now in construction.

Chris was involved from the site acquisition through feasibility and design to the planning approval.

At acquisition the questions were what the site would carry under the local controls and what would sell in Byron Bay. The answer became eight large residences over retail, around a courtyard. From there the consultant team, the design brief and the development application were run through to approval.

The application went to Byron Shire Council in June 2023 and was approved in April 2024: a basement car park, a café or restaurant and retail at street level, two levels of shop-top housing and a rooftop pool, with strata subdivision. The building is marketed as MARÉ Byron Bay.

HGA Studio designed it around a courtyard open to the sky and planted with palms, with a public laneway through the site from Marvell Street to Fletcher Lane and the restaurant under the undercroft on Marvell Street. The eight residences each have three bedrooms, two bathrooms and more than 140 m², with a pool and yoga deck on the roof. Florian Wild designed the landscape, Planners North prepared the application, and Edge Engineers and Wrap completed the consultant team.

Each residence has a balcony of up to 20 m², with a lift down to the basement car park and storage. The three retail tenancies sit in the town's E1 Local Centre zone, and one was leased before construction finished. Completion is scheduled for October 2026.

A mixed-use building in a coastal town centre is its own case to make. The scheme had to sit at the scale of the street and give something back to it, and the courtyard and the public laneway are how it does.

A smaller project than the Melbourne towers, run the same way: one person accountable for the consultant team, the budget and the program from the owner's side of the table.