“Not a good time for developers”: High-rise dreams on hold as costs stall Boronia CBD growth

bBoronia locals thinking the recent flurry of CBD building sales will lead to more high-rise developments are mistaken, according to a local commercial real estate director.

George Takis, the south east Melbourne director of commercial real estate firm TeskaCarson, told the Eastern Melburnian investors and businesses had snatched up recent building sales, but none had gone to developers with plans to knock down and build high.

Knox Council has confirmed it currently has no more applications from developers to build multi-storey blocks in the Boronia CBD.

🏗️ What’s being built? There are currently more than 100 developments ongoing in the Boronia CBD, ranging from mid-rise townhouses to retail opportunities.

• Another is a three-storey Arcare aged care facility next to the Boronia Hotel that will have more than 150 beds.

📈 Rising prices: Takis said high costs of development had hindered urban renewal, with not much interest from developers in Boronia despite Knox Council’s adoption of the Boronia Renewal Strategy last year, which had increased height limits to 10 storeys for CBD buildings.

• 🗣️ “Building costs are going up, land costs are up,” Takis said. “The end result is to sell properties they can afford, which does not meet the increased costs.”

🫸 Getting things moving: “Major Activity Centres” are areas identified as preferred locations for increased housing growth and diversity, as well as retail, commercial activity, community services, employment and public transport hubs.

• Takis said while the State Government hoped its 2002 declaration of the Boronia CBD as one of Melbourne’s “Major Activity Centres” would expedite residential development around transport hubs, the current reality was different.

• 🗣️ “The current year was not a good time for developers with interest rates and land tax increasing,” said Takis. “Developers do not feel safe, investors do not feel safe.”

😴 Lacking variety: Drop In Cafe owner Alpa Patel said Boronia’s CBD did not have the diversity and standard of businesses most people wanted, with most customers only coming into the Dorset Square carpark for Coles or Kmart.

• 🗣️ “They are going to Knox Westfield or to Eastland,” Patel told the Eastern Melburnian.

• Patel also said Boronia’s CBD being stretched across three shopping centres separated by busy roads made the area feel “very disjointed”.

👷 A facelift for transport: One area undergoing major development is Boronia’s train station, where cranes, trucks and workers have descended as part of a $60 million upgrade. This will include a new station forecourt canopy, a landscaped plaza between the station and Dorset Road, widening of the station concourse, new platform shelters and extra lighting and CCTV cameras.

What’s next? State Bayswater MP Jackson Taylor said the upgrade of Boronia Station was “the biggest State Government investment in Boronia in a generation”.

• 🗣️ “I can safely say Boronia’s brightest days are ahead of it,” Taylor told the Eastern Melburnian.