AS coastal developments such as the South Beach development the Port Coogee Marina development make inroads on land availability south of Perth, the long-defunct South Fremantle Power Station is looming as a potential residential redevelopment site.
Property developer Mirvac Fini is the latest developer to consider the site’s redevelopment potential.
Development director Brett Draffen said Mirvac Fini might be interested in what could be done with the site, although discussions were at an embryonic stage.
“We are looking at it but we haven’t done a scheme,” he said.
Mr Draffen said he was one of many developers that had considered the site in the past 10 years, but despite it being a good development opportunity, the associated heritage issues attached posed a number of problems.
He said Mirvac Fini might be interested if the heritage issues were made clear in terms of what had to stay and what didn’t.
“Heritage can quickly turn the figures around and make them hard to stack up,” he said.
Mr Draffen said that, like the East Perth power station, the South Fremantle power station could possibly yield a negative land value because of heritage restraints.
He said residential conversion with a retail component or a hotel was possible on the site, however it was not worth doing the work unless there was clear instruction from the Government.
The station is owned by Western Power and was given interim heritage listing back in 1997. It is yet to be assessed for full heritage listing.
