Developer Moves on Geelong CSIRO Site Carve-Up

Up Property is progressing on its plans to build a more-than-220-lot community on a former CSIRO site in Geelong.

The state minister for planning would need to amend the Greater Geelong Planning Scheme, which is in the public consultation phase, to facilitate Up’s plans to create the $126.5-million master planned community.

The amendments would enable the construction of the first 24 townhouses on blocks between 165sq m and 250sq m as well as creating 40 vacant lots on the 6.2ha site at 1 Henry Street, Belmont.

The site is the former home of the CSIRO Textile and Fibre Technology Laboratory. 

Up Property purchased the property in 2015 for between $8 million and $10 million, and demolished the 19 buildings on the site two years later.

Last year, three-bedroom renovated homes on Henry Street were selling for as much as $900,000.

The City of Greater Geelong council anticipates 73,400 homes will be needed by 2036 and is placing an emphasis on infill development.

The remaining land from Up Property would be split into two superlots of 1.74ha and 1.87ha respectively with the potential for apartments up to three storeys to be built in the future. 

There would also be a reserve created for the protection of an old yellow gum trees in stage one and a half-hectare park on one of the superlots.

Stage one plans revealed most of the homes would be two-storeys while future medium-density residential developments would be located on High Street, Reynolds Road and proposed public open space.

▲ Planned for the site is a mixed-use precinct including community spaces, commercial and residential opportunities.

Clarke Hopkins Clarke designed the townhouses with vertical sheet cladding, timber, metal and light brown brick finishes.

“[The project is] taking cues from the wool and textile history of the site through the ideas of folding and textural elements,” the plans said.

The project, to be called Lume, forms part of the developers’ Geelong portfolio that includes the refurbishment of the former headquarters of The Geelong Advertiser newspaper. 

Its other large-scale redevelopments include a mixed-use development including 65 apartments on 164-172 Mallop Street; a commercial property at 107-123 High Street; and another 6.2ha project in Moorabbin.