Melbourne will soon gain an eye-catching addition to its skyline, with the construction of a new, extremely tall skyscraper. Not only will this mammoth high-rise building be the tallest in our city, it'll be the tallest in the country, standing at a whopping 365 metres tall. And that's not the only record it'll break – the skyscraper will include 15,500 sqm of landscaping with 30,000 plants on it's exterior, making it the tallest vertical garden in the whole wide world. Whoa.
This gargantuan high-rise building is called 'Sth Bnk' and it'll be built on the junction of City Road and Southbank Boulevard, right next to Melbourne's current tallest building, Australia 108. It'll be made up of two towers, one taller than the other, but the shorter still rising to an impressive 288 metres. And what will be inside these two towers? Well, just about everything and anything you could imagine – it's pretty much going to be a mini vertical city.
Sth Bnk will consist of hundreds of residential apartments, 35,000 sqm of office space, a resort with 210 suites, a Four Seasons hotel, a conference and entertainment centre, a children's play centre, a whole floor with a dedicated health and wellness zone (complete with gym, sauna, infinity pool and more), an international art gallery curated by Paris' prestigious Centre Pompidou and retail space. Oh, and a sky garden. Calling it swanky doesn't even begin to cover it.
But it sure is going to be swanky – you'd hope it will be anyway, as the whole project has a $2 billion price tag. It's being developed by Beulah International and its innovative design has already been internationally recognised with a swag of awards. While the inside will have plenty of wow factor, the exterior of the towers will too. They'll take the title of the world's tallest tree-covered skyscraper – and smash that record three times over, in fact. Its thousands of carefully chosen, resilient plants will be grown to maturity in a dedicated nursery in Victoria, before living on the side of the two towers. Melbourne's skyline will certainly be looking greener.
Construction on the skyscraper is planned to commence this year, with the build expected to take five years, taking the completion date to some time in 2029. So it'll be a while before we see this colossal structure added to our city's sky, but despite this, 80 per cent of the residential apartments have already sold. In fact, one residential sale saw the skyscraper break yet another record, with the most expensive apartment ever sold in Melbourne. The cost? A casual $38 million. If your jaw wasn't already on the floor, it probably is now.
If you want to read more about the skyscraper project, head to the website.
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