By CAMERON LUCADOU-WELLS
A PROPOSED five-star green star office building will be the new work site for 850 Australian Taxation Office staff in central Dandenong.
Staff will be relocated from the ATO’s current Mason Street office into the seven-storey proposed building at the Walker Street-Halpin Way site from late 2015. The ATO has signed a 15-year occupation lease.
In design drawings, the glassy building comprising 14,100 square metres of commercial office and retail space looks similar to the Government Services Office in nearby Walker and Thomas streets.
It is being developed by EPC Pacific which successfully tendered state government developer Places Victoria for the site.
Places Victoria chief executive Peter Seamer said the project meant 30 per cent of the Revitalising Central Dandenong precinct had been developed or was committed for development since 2006.
“[It is] producing job-creating activity and helping Dandenong regain its title as the economic hub of the south-east.”
Since 2006 there has been $460 million in private investment – nearly half of Places Victoria’s $1 billion goal within the next 13 years.
The state government has spent $290 million developing the precinct.
Places Victoria is “in discussions” over a proposed private regional health facility in the precinct and is putting another site to market, leaving 13 remaining sites to be “contracted to developers in response to market demand”.
Other developed sites include the under-construction Greater Dandenong council building and library expected to be opened next year.
