Hamilton Group reveals plans for next North Geelong project
The mid-century facade of the former Henderson’s building will become the hero of the latest development prject from Hamilton Group.
Geelong’s Hamilton Group has received the green light for a $20m redevelopment of a former car components factory, expanding its Pivot City innovation district at North Geelong.
Managing director Cam Hamilton said Geelong’s council had approved the plans to transform the former Henderson’s factory at 8-20 Corio Quay Rd.
Mr Hamilton said the developer had acquired the site, which meant it’s North Geelong holding encompassed the whole block between Mackey St and McLeod St.
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The Hendersons building redevelopment would neighbour the Federal Mills and Glass House projects. Sexyland is a tenant in a stand-alone building between the sites on Corio Quay Rd.
“We’re going to open it up to both sites to make sure it’s all part of the same precinct,” Mr Hamilton said of the Hendersons building.
Renders of the Henderson development for Hamilton Group’s Pivot City Innovation Precinct.
The project would create 29 new tenancies, ranging in floorspace from 150sq m to 500sq m, he said.
“And we’re going to bring in lots of glass hallways, glass roof, lots of greenery and focusing for more similar things about the precinct.”
Mr Hamilton said though firm hadn’t marketed the project, he suspected it drive strong interest, given the general interest for space at Federal Mills and the Glass House.
He said the site would align with the district’s ability to house budding businesses during their growth phases.
“One of the troubles we’ve had with the other buildings we’ve got, because of the nature of those buildings, have been it’s hard to split up into smaller areas,” Mr Hamilton said.
Renders of the Henderson development for Hamilton Group’s Pivot City Innovation Precinct.
“So we’ve really focused on delivering those smaller tenancies – around the 150sq m to 250sq m on this one.
“We’ve always wanted to have a space where we can have businesses scale up.
“We’ve got multiple start-ups and we wanted to provide the ability for businesses to go through their growth cycle without having to leave the site.
“And definitely we’ve seen that on numerous occasions throughout the precinct as it stands. A lot of the time it’s people taking up one space and then trying to take next door and then next door again.
“That’s the beauty of these larger sites with one landlord – you’ve got the ability to facilitate that growth without having to necessarily break a lease and go to another site.”
Hamilton Group earlier dropped mixed use plans for its Power House site on Mackey St, which faced significant opposition from a farmer group and GrainCorp, and instead use existing permission under the site’s industrial zoning.
Renders of the Henderson development for Hamilton Group’s Pivot City Innovation Precinct.
The North Geelong Power Station B opened in 1954 and was decommissioned in 1979, remaining vacant since with the exception of a temporary street art gallery about 10 years ago
“Due to the proximity of the site its industrial past, we do get a lot of industrial-based businesses wanting a nicer office without moving their industrial traffic with their white collar (workers),” Mr Hamilton said.
“We’ve found a lot of engineers and the like that have got big contracts in the area looking for good office space. That can also be evidenced by the fact we’ve got Border Force and Ports Victoria in that space as well.
“It’s really about capitalising on the location, and rather than be competition with the CBD, let’s focus on what benefits this site has and who those benefits specifically target.
“We always maintained a position where we’ve got these larger sites, you’ve just got to let them evolve and move with it.”
