Rooftop crowning glory for Saint

A communal rooftop garden is sure to be the place to the meet the neighbours when new apartment tower Saint opens in spring next year.

Construction on the Carlisle St project has just started and 37 of the 51 residences have sold – 14 to owner-occupiers and 23 to investors.

SJB Architects has used an angled facade to help this project stand out from the rest. The front is encased in brickwork and interspersed with a powder-black underlayer.

Greenery overhanging from the communal rooftop and lush landscaping on the ground floor make a colourful feature. There are also private courtyards and balconies for residents to call their own.

Buyers have a wealth of choice when it comes to apartment configuration. There are one, two and three bedroom apartments on offer, as well as a four-bedroom apartment with a study. There are also luxury two-bedroom townhouses, which are linked by a landscaping zone on the northern side of the building.

Buyers can choose from either a light or dark colour scheme, and each residence has engineered timber floorboards included in the price. In the bathrooms, the cisterns have been built into the walls so there is more shelf space.

Each apartment and townhouse has a storage lot in one of the two basement levels of the building. Parking is also catered for, with every residence having at least one car space.

Saint occupies a prize spot in St Kilda: just a kilometre to the beach and a 650-metre walk to Acland Street. Public transport is no hassle, with the Carlisle St tram on the doorstep and the Balaclava train station less than a kilometre away.

At a glance

• Saint, 80 Carlisle Street, St Kilda
• Architect: SJB Architect
• ​Developer: DCT Developments
• Interior design: SJB Architects
• ​Number of apartments: 51 in total; 15 one-bedroom apartments, 8 one-bedroom plus study apartments, 5 two-bedroom apartments, 2 three-bedroom apartments, 4 two-bedroom townhouses, 2 three-bedroom apartments with optional floor plans and 1 four-bedroom-plus-study apartment with optional floor plan
• Internal sizes (in square metres): One-bedroom 42-51; two-bedroom 58-91; three-bedroom 103-108; four-bedroom 173
• External areas (square metres): Townhouses 18-65, four-bedroom apartment 85
• Prices: One-bedroom apartments $375,000-$480,000; two-bedroom apartments $590,000-$1.2 million; three-bedroom apartments $950,000-$1.075 million; four-bedroom apartment $2.17 million
• Car parking: One-bedroom and two-bedroom apartments have one car space, three-bedroom apartments two car spaces and the four-bedroom apartment has two car spaces
• Completion: October, 2017
• Agent: CBRE, Rob Puzzolo 1300 888 770
• Open for inspection: Tuesday-Sunday noon-4pm at onsite display suite

Saintly start in the market

Finding a way to squeeze into the property market was a problem Andrew Dixon, 22, above, thought he would tackle in a few years. So he was surprised to find himself buying a one-bedroom apartment off the plan at Saint.

“It was actually kind of strange, basically I’d just recently come back from studying overseas and had a brief conversation with my parents about looking at some properties,” he says.

“That was literally the first property that I’d come across when I was snooping about. I’d had a look at a couple of other ones and that one was just the best one I’d seen so I ended up going into that.

“I wasn’t expecting to buy for at least a couple of years or so, but it sort of came about that I could actually do it.

After living with his parents and at boarding school, finding a new place to call home was Dixon’s top priority.

“What attracted me to it was it was all new and it was going to have all my own things in there. I’ve always liked the idea of having my own place and filling it with my own things basically.”