Nightingale Fine Tunes Coburg Not-for-Profit Project

Not-for-profit developer Nightingale Housing has filed amended plans for its latest Coburg project after requests from the Merri-bek City Council.

The seven-storey block at 170 Sydney Road will comprise 48 apartments and two retail tenancies. 

Documents submitted to the council names 170 Sydney Road Pty Ltd as the client.

ASIC records list Nightingale board member Jeremy McLeod as the director of 170 Sydney Road Pty Ltd with its sole share held by Nightingale Communities Ltd.

Nightingale operates a not-for-profit model where up to 20 per cent of the apartments in the project will be designated for community housing providers social and the rest will be sold at cost.

This generates no profit for Nightingale, who raises funds from investment partners and some future owners for each project. Its first project was completed in 2017.

The council requested that minor changes be made to the plans including  a reduction in size of the pergola on the seventh floor.

The developer has added two apartments to the ground floor and more shre car parking spaces as required.

Kennedy Nolan Architects designed the amended plans.

▲ A render of the Coburg project proposed by Nightingale.

There will be five share car parking spaces and 110 bicycle spaces.

Four one-bedroom loft apartments and two retail tenancies plus bike storage will be on the ground floor while there will be four one-bedroom and four two-bedroom apartments on both the first and second floors.

There will be one studio apartment, five two-bedroom apartments and two one-bedroom apartments on the third floor; six two-bedroom apartments and one studio on the fourth; and six two-bedroom apartments on the fifth floor.

Five two-bedroom apartments, two of which will each have an extra study, will be on the sixth floor.

The seventh floor will have a roof terrace, a productive garden, two one-bedroom apartments and a communal laundry.

▲ Not-for-profit sustainable housing developer Nightingale Housing chief executive Dan McKenna.

Documents submitted to the council estimate the total development cost at $15 million.

Corelogic’s property records show that the site exchanged hands in 2021, with settlement in April 2022, for $3.685 million.

Nightingale last year appointed Dan McKenna as its chief executive after McLeod stepped back to remain as a board member and founding director Andrew Maynard exited the company.