The future of the heritage building is now unclear after plans for a satellite of Greece’s were quietly shelved last year,and Heritage Victoria refused developer ISPT’s revised plans for an office tower.
Heritage Victoria has refused an application to redevelop Melbourne’s former Land Titles Office.Chris Hopkins
ISPT’s latest plans were to partially demolish the heritage building in Queen Street’s legal precinct,to construct a 25-level office tower alongside affordable community spaces and hospitality venues.
Heritage Victoria refused the application on the grounds the construction of a tower would have significant physical and visual impacts on the historic building.
“The height,width and overall mass of the proposed tower would visually overwhelm and dominate the view of the office building,reducing it to a podium to the proposed tower,” Heritage Victoria said.
Construction of the Land Titles Office finished in 1889 and it was included in the Victorian Heritage Register in 1982,recognising its “architectural,technical and historical significance to the state of Victoria”.
ISPT’s initial design for a Greek museum inside the Land Titles Office with a tower above.Hellenic Museum/ ISPT
The building was designed by architect JJ Clark,who also designed the Treasury building. It is one of only two remaining 19th nineteenth-century buildings on that city block,along with the Supreme Court.
Heritage Victoria said the building demonstrated the “architectural restraint” of the public works department of the time under the leadership of William Wardell and signified the change of law for the recording of land ownership to the Torrens system.
The office’s former use is still evident in its design and layout,with a separate “strong room”,one of the state’s first fireproof buildings,designed to protect the irreplaceable Certificates of Title for properties.
Heritage Victoria said the proposed demolition of areas including the boiler room and the former receiving and issuing hall to allow for the construction of the tower and the insertion of a large new entrance and lobby fronting Queen Street “would cause substantial harm and irreversibly diminish cultural heritage significance of the place”.
An architectural render of the lobby of the proposed new Greek museum on the site which has been shelved.Hellenic Museum/ ISPT
It noted the economic-use assessment of the planned development acknowledged that the internal rate of return was “on the cusp of viability”.
“There is a risk that the project may fail or not be fully realised,which may result in the Titles Office being left in a more perilous state than it currently is,” Heritage Victoria said.
ISPT initially lodged plans in 2020 to redevelop the building into a $244 million satellite of Greece’s Benaki Museum in partnership with Melbourne’s Hellenic Museum,which it said would “bring back to life a true Melbourne landmark” and “cement the city’s reputation as an attractive cultural hub”.
The Benaki is spread across seven museums in Greece,covering the span of Greek culture from prehistory to the present and including large Islamic,Byzantine and Chinese collections. The planned museum in Melbourne was seen as a way of expanding its brand internationally as the Guggenheim has done.
Sarah Craig,chief executive of the Hellenic Museum,said the museum’s partnership with ISPT and the proposed Land Titles Office project ended in mid-2021.
She declined to comment on why the Hellenic Museum had not continued with its plans for the Benaki Museum satellite in Melbourne.
ISPT shelved the plans for the museum and a 30-storey tower and amended the application to plans for offices in January.
The developer bought the building in 2018 after a previous proposal by Victoria University to build a 17-storey vertical campus on the site was rejected because of heritage concerns.
The Land Titles Office vacated the building in 2003.
Simon Ambrose,chief executive of the National Trust of Australia said the trust applauded Heritage Victoria’s decision to refuse the permit application for the Land Titles Office building.
“We have already seen too many historic buildings in Melbourne treated as podiums for soaring towers,” he said. “The former Land Titles Office is one of Victoria’s most prominent and significant 19th century civic buildings.”
ISPT or a person with a “real and substantial interest in the place” has the ability to request a review of Heritage Victoria’s refusal of the application within 60 days.
ISPT declined to comment.
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