Developers are cementing the home office as a trend in boutique city apartments. One firm has made them a central feature, aimed at people living interstate or down on the coast, in a new Fender Katsalidis Architects-designed 25-storey hotel and apartment complex in central Melbourne. Calvin Huang’s family development company, DCF Property, is planning the hotel and home-office project for its 152-156 Little Lonsdale site just north of the State Library of Victoria.
A render of the hotel proposed for 152 Little Lonsdale Street. Huang received permission from the City of Melbourne last week to demolish the three-storey 1960s-era office building on the site, and work is expected to start on the new complex in February of next year. “We’ve got a great permit for a city-based home office and hotel in the post-COVID era, which I believe will work here,” Huang said.
Loading The hotel, designed by Fender Katsalidis Architects’ Karl Fender and James Pearce, is going up in a section of the CBD full of new towers, including Charter Hall’s Wesley Place across the road and the Pellicano and Perri Group’s 20-level project on Bennett’s Lane. It’s also just a block away from Setia’s $500 million ghost hotel, the aptly named Shangri-La Hotel, which remains an empty shell without fittings or fixtures despite its completion by Multiplex nearly a year ago. DCF’s project is comparatively modest.
The first 12 floors of the new tower will be a hotel, while the top 12 floors w.