Peel off a floor in Peel Street!

This exciting new project at Peel Chambers offers opportunities for individuals, families and businesses to create and live their inner city dreams.

Buyers can have the whole floor of this unique building on its own Title to create an their completely individualised apartment, studio, office or home/office.

The ground floor is currently designated commercial and covers 124 m2 with a basement space of some 67m2, while the 5 upper floors are 152m2 to 164m2

Priced from $600,000 to $700,000 each single floor shell provides:

• Upgraded building services including a new lift, soundproofing, plumbing, fire protection and communication services
• Repainted and restored building facade and windows, including replacing all west facing windows
• Strata titling of complete floors to enable buyers to pursue their vision for either residential or commercial purposes
• A covenant that allows the owners to "do their own thing" while safeguarding the other members of the community title scheme

Peel Street and Leigh Street is where it's all happening in the City with this precinct benefitting from the Council's new lane way strategy, the redevelopment of the Adelaide Oval and the new Royal Adelaide Hospital on North Terrace.

Timber raises its building sites

TIMBER apartments will sprout out of the tops of carparks across the city if Peter Buchan has his way.

The developer wants to build the multi-level towers using an innovative building material known as cross-laminated timber (CLT).

And he says carparks offer a cost-effective platform for the lightweight, high-rise structures.

"What we're trying to do is create a product that has never been done before," he says.

"If we can build affordable, high-yield residential property built over air space, we are going to repopulate the city a lot quicker."

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41 Currie Street

After over 3 months of negotiations it looks like we have finally secured this office building and adjoining carpark for one of our clients based overseas.

We are really excited about managing this asset and adding substantial value with some strategic redevelopment in this fabulous location. Watch this space as we transform this property in a number of ways.

Counting the dollars

We just settled the $460,000 sale of a 2 bedroom apartment in the South Building of our development at 4-8 Charles Street Adelaide (aka 223 North Terrace). This apartment was originally bought off the plan for $305,000 in October 2006 and we managed the rental since that date for the owner.

As it quite conveniently turned out that it was both bought and sold in the month of October, we thought we would "run the slide rule" over his 4 year investment. The initial rental was $365 per week in the first year and this was periodically increased to $450 per week as at October 2010.

So if we add his gross sale profit of $155,000 and his rental income of $85,900 this totals $240,900, equating to a gross return of some 79% on the initial $305,000 investment.

We encourage all of our readers to buy an apartment in the City of Adelaide ... hopefully from us : )

Wakefield Street attracts the celebrities

This ground breaking development was once home to radio presenter Jodie Blewett, and we were pretty excited a couple of years ago when we leased one of the apartments to 2 of the stars from McLeod's Daughters - Matt Passmore and Luke Jacobz.

Then we sold an apartment in the building to Amber Petty, another radio personality, and we thought that was pretty cool. But when Princess Mary visited Amber and stayed over, there was so much public attention with the national press gathered around the foyer area that we don't think it can ever be topped!

We have just sold one of the top level apartments for well in excess of $800,000, and will have 2 more for sale very soon. Now we just have to figure out how to include "Danish royalty stayed here" into our advertising. Just kidding!

City Housing Diversity

We spend a lot of time around high-quality modern apartment and townhouse buildings in the Square Mile during the normal course of our business of developing, selling and leasing our clients' properties. However, the city also has a long history of providing accommodation to people that the private property market can't accommodate, particularly lower income groups of all ages. We think this is important because a city's vitality depends on the diversity of its residents.

One of the most recent housing initiatives is "Common Ground Adelaide Ltd". Set up by the SA government and private sponsors, this organisation aims to provide good quality affordable rental housing to low income people and those at risk of homelessness. It mirrors the not for profit common ground project in New York founded by former Adelaide "thinker in residence" Rosanne Haggerty.

Their first project was completed in November 2007 and is known as "Common Ground on Franklin". It consists of 39 units (15 one bed and 21 studios) built above the central bus station.

The second project rapidly nearing completion is the re-habilitation and extension of a heritage listed building in Light Square which will contain 60 self contained apartments, Common Ground's head office, communal facilities, and health/welfare/vocational support services for residents.

Mixed Use Buildings

It doesn't seem that long ago when Peter was advising the owners of Ruthven Mansions at 15 to 27 Pulteney Street on the feasibility of selling off the apartments on separate strata titles while having a retail arcade in separate ownership at ground level. This all seemed so novel (not to mention risky) back in 1993!

Ruthven Mansions was built in 1911 and was a very early venture in apartment living in the City of Adelaide. This obviously fell out of fashion it later became home to the Government Chest Clinic in 1953 and was then refurbished in 1980 by architect John Chappel to operate as an apartment hotel.

Now mixed use buildings are quite common place, because multiple uses are often the most economic use of expensive city land. According to the Adelaide City Council the city population in 2010 is 21,000 and forecast to increase by another 20,130 over the next 21 years. This means that many more mixed use buildings are going to be built and we hope that they involve some new and exciting architecture!

Click on these links for more information on real life examples of mixed use buildings in the city:

223 North Terrace

23 King William Street

Park Terrace Gilberton

The former Channel 7 Studios site in the near city suburb of Gilberton has an extensive frontage to Park Terrace and a rear boundary to the River Torrens. Zoned residential, the location and size give it fabulous development potential, although parts of it have up to 8 meters of fill.

It has taken a long time for a project to be started, as the site has been vacant (except for the ducks) since 2007 when Channel 7 relocated to Hindmarsh.

Now it looks like it is finally all happening with demolition of the old buildings under way and said to be finished by the end of June. Apparently there was an approval for 56 dwellings and 9 courtyard blocks which lapsed, and now there is a current approval for 12 blocks.

We'll keep watching the site to see what evolves...

Transforming Walkerville

The vacant Department of Transport buildings in the heart of Walkerville look as though they will finally be transformed into 2 by 10 storey residential apartment and hotel buildings consisting of some 300 apartments and a 100 room boutique hotel.

The site was sold to Victorian developers last year for around $10 million, and it has been reported that they are going to spend $100 million transforming these early 1960's office buildings into modern contemporary style apartments. The site has some great attributes including fantastic views and a position within a very desirable suburb.

It's a pity that the Government didn't sell this site together with the adjoining site fronting to Walkerville Terrace (now a great big hole in the ground - apparently it was sold to different developers who are having financial problems), as car parking could be a real issue in the site's redevelopment.