Megamart apartments grow to 67 storeys

Melbourne-based developer ICD Property has supersized plans for an apartment development at the old Megamart site on the fringe of the CBD, flagging two towers that would become the fourth and fifth-tallest buildings in Perth.

A fresh development application for the site, lodged with the City of Perth, comprises two residential towers, which would contain 1,066 apartments and scale 67- and 58-storeys, respectively.

The proposal also flags two other buildings, which would house a 10-level, 140-room hotel and a 4,000 square metre retail and hospitality centre.

At 205 metres, the largest tower would be taller than all but three buildings in Perth, with only Central Park, Brookfield Place and 108 St Georges Terrace reaching higher into the sky.

The 58-storey tower would also be taller than the current fourth-tallest building in Perth’s CBD, QV1.

City of Perth documents indicate a construction cost for the entire project, before internal fitout works, of $488 million.

ICD, which bought a 75 per cent stake in the project in April last year for $45 million from Sydney’s EG Funds Management, estimates its end value to be around $670 million.

A previous plan put forward last year by EG Funds Management proposed three towers at the 9,759 square metre plot, including a 52-storey building that would have become the city’s largest residential tower.

The new project has been designed by global architecture firm Elenberg Fraser, while ICD’s local partner in the project is TPG Town Planning Urban Design and Heritage.

Chinese-backed ICD Property was founded in 2009 by its managing director, Michael Mai, and quickly built a pipeline of significant projects in Melbourne.

Mr Mai’s father, Boliang Mai, is the chief executive of China’s CIMC, a multi-billion-dollar conglomerate that manufactures shipping containers, modular building systems and transport vehicles.

ICD’s largest development to date is the Eq Tower in Melbourne’s CBD, a 63-level, 633 apartment project being built by Brookfield Multiplex.

The Megamart proposal is to be assessed by the City of Perth development assessment panel in coming weeks, and if it is approved to go ahead, would become ICD’s biggest project.

The proposal is a distinctive design from global architecture firm Elenberg Fraser. Image: EG Funds Management