Rich
Street

An eight-level office building in Abbotsford, 4,808 m² GFA with 3,915 m² of net lettable area, completed at a project value of $42m.

Chris was involved the whole way: identifying the site, the acquisition, the planning approval, the consultant team and builder procurement, delivery on site through to practical completion, and then leasing the finished building.

The site is 2 Rich Street, on the corner of Johnston Street. The planning application went to the City of Yarra in 2020 for offices, food and drink and retail with reduced car parking, and the building was completed in the first quarter of 2025.

MGAO won the design through a competition. The massing takes its proportions from the Victorian terraces nearby and steps down towards the heritage area, and the dark green, textured cladding draws on the Yarra Bend, Studley Park and the Fairfield Boathouse. The team included Pro Urban for planning, Wrap Engineering for building services, Traffix Group for traffic and Jack Merlo for landscape.

The building is all-electric, with eight floors of office and retail and 597 m² of terraces and green roofs across three terraces and the roof, planted with plane trees, and Victoria Park Station is a short walk away. Art Processors is among the tenants.

Staying on through leasing tested the decisions made at feasibility and design against the market: the size of the floor plates, outdoor space off the office floors, and an all-electric building.

Because one person carried the project from the site search to the lease, the brief was never handed over between teams. The planning case, the design competition, the builder's contract and the leasing all worked from the numbers set at acquisition, and the building finished in 2025 is the one those numbers described.

The building is complete. It is the clearest example on this site of the full arc, from a question about a site to a finished building, run by one accountable person.