Carpark Redundancies in CBD

One of Melbourne's biggest developers has turned what was normally and previously a car park, into luxurious living spaces.

Grocon have converted what was a dormant level of car parking at the QV centre in Lonsdale St, into a set of luxurious apartments - identifying a new way of developing - using wasted space to create more.

When Grocon built and opened the QV Centre in 2003, it presented itself as a large apartment complex, with parking available for all the occupiers. However, the top floor of the eight-level car park was not being used at all - and instead of moving on and accepting it, Grocon decided to convert that empty and unused space into some more apartments - they labelled the space, 'found space'.

Carolyn Viney, chief executive of Grocon, told The Age, "about 95 percent of the built form you will see in 2050 is already built."

"So if we are talking about sustainable development, some of it has to involve not knocking stuff down and starting again, but working with what's already there," she continued.

Architects Breathe Architecture aided the design element of Grocon's 'expansion' and were pivotal to the process of this transformation.

The buyers of the eight apartments settled into the $1-2million dollar apartments last week, each with north-facing balconies overlooking the State Library's reading room - with the largest of the apartments having a 200sqm garden.

Using public transport, or walking, or cycling to work seem to have made living space more of a priority than parking space - thus leaving the question behind, 'are carparks becoming redundant in our CBDs?'