$120m luxury ‘re-imagining’ approved for Collingwood

A Veriu hotel will anchor a new $120 million accommodation and retail precinct green-lighted for development in Melbourne’s Collingwood.

The Ateliér Residences and hotel project at 23-33 Johnston Street, next to the Collingwood Arts Precinct, will encompass the four-star Veriu alongside 51 luxury apartments and two floors of restaurants and shops.

The 95-room hotel is the suburb’s first major accom offering and will be operated and managed by the Veriu Group, with ownership retained by the precinct’s developer, Gurner.

Inspired by New York’s Crosby Hotel, the project will sit behind a retained heritage façade and the apartments and hotel rooms will feature a “luxe, moody palette of polished concrete, timber and stone that emulates Collingwood’s industrial past”, says Gurner.

Residents will have access to the hotel’s 4.5-star services including the concierge, housekeeping, turn-down service and on-site business facilities, and to the Ateliér Private Club featuring a bar, lap pool, garden terraces, fire pit, sunroom and sunset cinema.

But they also get the privilege of a private entrance and private lifts, and will be given priority bookings for any shared amenity spaces.

The Collingwood development is part of Gurner’s “strategic diversification into hotel, retail and mixed-use development with an increasing focus on a retained ownership model across the retail components of current and future projects”.

“Ateliér Residences and Veriu Collingwood represent the evolution of the business as we look to diversify into a number of new segments,” said director Tim Gurner.

“We recognise the value in a retained ownership model where we can not only assert full creative control over the retail and hotel components that anchor our projects, but build a portfolio of well-performing assets into the future.

“Our vision for Ateliér is to deliver a hotel that takes its cues from our luxury residential projects and reimagine them for an entirely new demographic.

[pro_ad_display_adzone id=”44555″ align=”left” padding=”10″]“We want to bring the best of hotel living to a residential scale by offering luxury hotel services to the owners of our residences in what will be a first for the Collingwood area – so residents will be able to order on-call housekeeping, concierge or turn-down services as part of their daily life.

“We are very excited to partner with Veriu to create a hotel offering that caters to a new market, melding luxury residential with a boutique hotel in one of my favourite areas of Melbourne.”

Veriu CEO Zed Sanjana said the group’s first foray out of Sydney was its most exciting project to date.

“Collingwood is one of Melbourne inner-city’s most exciting neighbourhoods, a creativity and style hub complete with a vibrant cafe and dining scene, in a location not currently well supplied in terms of hotels and serviced apartments,” he said.

“I have no doubt this hotel will thrive on the growing demand of corporate and leisure travellers searching for boutique, flexible and design-driven accommodation”.

The building has been designed by Cox Architecture, with Jack Merlo creating the landscapes across courtyards, gardens and communal areas.

Ateliér Residences will feature a range of one, two and three-bedroom apartments, with prices ranging from $495,000 up to $3.95 million for the penthouse.

Construction across the project is slated to commence in May 2020 with the hotel earmarked to open in late 2021.