New lease of life for old business park

Space is at a premium for most homebuyers and it was something this development already had in the bag. Toorak Park sits on the 2.5-hectare site of a former business park, so architects Denton Corker Marshall had lots of room to play with.

“I think one of the key things was it was a large land holding and therefore we were able to do a lot of things you might not normally be able to do if say, you were aggregating one or two houses and trying to build a block of flats,” says John Denton, director at Denton Corker Marshall.

“It’s surrounded on a couple of sides by parks and it had the convenience of the railway station and access to the shops.

“It just started out with all the right attributes to be a great development.”

Four precincts ranging in height from four to 12 levels make up this Armadale development. The theme of space carries through to the interior of the 450 apartments and townhouses, which have from 49 square metres to 237 square metres of internal space. Many have floor to ceiling windows and balconies overlooking landscaping works by Tract.

Of the total site space, 25 per cent of the grounds will be handed back to the community in the form of public gardens. A new bluestone plaza offers a gourmet grocery store and cafe near a central boulevard. From here, the railway line and Beatty Avenue shops can be accessed.

Inside, buyers can chose from a light or dark colour palette. Kitchens feature island benches, sculleries and Miele appliances. Each residence has also been acoustically engineered to ensure privacy and amenity. A pool and gym complete the package.

One-bedroom apartments have already sold out, leaving two and three-bedroom apartments and three-bedroom townhouses on the market.

At a glance

• Toorak Park, 590 Orrong Road, Armadale
• ​Architect: Denton Corker Marshall
• ​Developer: Lendlease
• ​Interior design: Carr Design Group
• Number of apartments: 468; 153 one-bedroom; 238 two-bedroom; 59 three-bedroom; 18 three-bedroom townhouses
• ​Internal sizes (square metres): One-bedroom 49-66; two-bedroom 71-102; three-bedroom 110-145; three-bedroom townhouses 166; four-bedroom townhouses 173-237
• External areas (square metres): 7-20Prices: Two-bed $889,000-$1.2 million; three-bed $1,355,000-$1,735,000; three-bed townhouses $2.14 million-$3.1 million
• ​Car parking: All apartments have one car space, many have two.
• Completion: Mid-2017Agent: Lendlease, Andrew Hall 0407 270 083
• Open for inspection: Onsite display suite in the park precinct (access via Osment Street, Armadale). Open 11am-1pm, Wednesday to Sunday, or by appointment.

From seachange to citychange

When downsizers Sue and Rob Logie-Smith, above,  began spending more and more time lapping up Melbourne’s arts and culture, they decided to up sticks to the inner-city.

Soon they will shift from their house on the 13th Beach at Barwon Heads to a three-bedroom apartment at Toorak Park in Armadale.

“We decided we needed to come back to Melbourne, leave the seachange and come back to a citychange because most of what we do is music, opera, ballet, art galleries,” Rob says.

“What we wanted to do was find an apartment which was not too far from the Southbank area on good public transport, but not on St Kilda Road.”

On their list of criteria was good access to public transport, the Monash Freeway and shops.

“We found Toorak Park because it’s a fabulous location with two trams, a bus and a wonderful train service,” Rob says.

“It’s a great location and we’ve got some good shopping areas; we’ve got Hawksburn, Glenferrie Road, Malvern, Toorak Village and easy access to the Monash Freeway.

“It’s got excellent parks around it and it’s been built by a very reputable, quality developer.”