The policies of the rotten Vic Labor government are killing commercial property projects in Victoria.
Victoria has appalling productivity.
Victoria has high priced Infrastructure EBA's that make labour costs unsustainablem for commercial development.
Victoria has sucked labour and materials into infrastructure projects driving up costs for commercial projects.
see excerpts from AFR report below.
*********************************************************************** Developer V-Leader abandons $1b of Melbourne office projects
Sep 17, 2024 – 5.48pm
Larry Schlesinger AFR
Melbourne developer V-Leader has abandoned close to a $1 billion of office projects in the CBD and city fringe and instead listed the dormant sites for sale, adding to the growing number of permit-approved developments no longer viable due to rising construction costs, delays and weak demand.
Led by Andy Zhang and with a $3.2 billion pipeline of projects, V-Leader made a splash in 2018 when it acquired the former Lonsdale Court building at 600 Lonsdale Street for $48 million after convincing more than a dozen strata owners to sell up.
The near 2000sq m site near Southern Cross Station at the western end of the CBD was originally earmarked for a 288-room hotel in a 40-storey tower, before V-Leader scrapped this idea two years ago and secured a permit instead for an A-Grade office building with 24,000sq m of lettable area in a design by renowned Chicago-based architecture firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill and Melbourne’s Fender Katsalidis.
At the time, the Melbourne CBD office vacancy rate was around 15 per cent, but Mr Zhang was confident the 600 Lonsdale project would capitalise on an expected “flight to quality” among office tenants.
Agents from CBRE were appointed to lease the $574 million tower and construction was due to kick off last year after the existing building was demolished, and the site cleared and pre-construction work completed. But with the project on ice, advertising hoardings around the site have been progressively covered in graffiti.
