An Innovative Partnership Makes Inner City Living Affordable for All Melburnians

Thursday, 30 April 2009

The key partners behind The Merchant, Docklands first affordable housing project, will today celebrate a key construction milestone for the development. The Merchant presents an innovative model that will effectively deliver key worker housing in other cities throughout the country in the future.

The Merchant is the result of a successful partnership between Lend Lease, Melbourne Affordable Housing, now part of the Housing Choices Australia group (HCA) and VicUrban. The development offers both private and public housing, with 57 of the 133 apartments dedicated to key worker housing.

With a growing number of people opting for an inner city lifestyle, The Merchant has been very well received by the market and has sold out nine months prior to its completion, which is due early in 2010.

The Merchant will offer quality affordable housing for Melbourne's key workers, assisting these people to live closer to their employment. This means less time commuting to and from work, ensuring they can stay in the jobs that are essential to the running of our city.

Jan Berriman, COO of HCA said, “The Merchant is representative of a strategic partnership that will deliver the collective goal of The Victorian State Government, and other key stake holders, to provide quality housing solutions for people on low to modest incomes to provide diverse and sustainable communities. ”

David Hutton, CEO of Lend Lease Retail & Communities, said The Merchant was a great outcome for all the project partners involved.

“The success of The Merchant has been driven by the collaborative effort between Melbourne Affordable Housing, VicUrban and ourselves.”

Mr Hutton continued, “Melbourne Affordable Housing has shown an outstanding level of commitment and passion for this project, and their drive and engagement can be attributed directly to the successful outcome of the project.”

The collective goal of all partners is to see Victoria Harbour evolve into a vibrant community, full of energy for all who live, work and visit there. The success of The Merchant is just one example of how we are jointly working together to ensure opportunities to enrich the Docklands precinct are capitalised on.

“It is essential that Docklands consists of a diverse range of people from all walks of life to assist its transition to a true Melbourne community,” said Pru Sanderson, CEO of VicUrban.

“Partnerships such as this play a key role in realising the vision for Docklands and we are seeking to work with other developers to identify additional, appropriate affordable living initiatives for this area.”

Increasingly world class cities are providing housing opportunities for services workers and in the UK this is a well established, well understood and well accepted part of nearly all redevelopment projects. Lend Lease are proud to be part of this innovation in residential development and believe the model can be replicated in other areas and cities.

The Merchant has been developed to combine all that is great about Melbourne living - contemporary architecture, efficient design and a premier location between the Victoria Harbour waterfront and the CBD.

Lend Lease, Melbourne Affordable Housing and VicUrban are proud to present this winning proposition to not only the residents of Docklands but all Melburnians.

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