Voyager’s $5m Cottesloe plan

Michael Wright’s Voyager Estate winery is looking to upgrade its Perth office, with a $5 million proposal in Cottesloe in the planning pipeline.

The proposal to redevelop its Forrest Street property into a three-storey office and luxury apartment complex has been recommended for approval by the Town of Cottesloe and will be assessed by the metropolitan west development assessment panel.

Voyager is planning to create eight office tenancies in a new building at 105 Forrest Street, totalling 1,416 square metres of office space, as well as two luxury apartments on the upper level.

The design of the proposal, by architecture firm Hames Sharley, follows federation principles, with floor-to-floor heights of 3.6 metres in keeping with neighbouring heritage-listed properties.

According to the development application, careful consideration has been made to ensure the building enhances the visual amenity of the area, although the proposal does not match the Cape Dutch architecture of the winery’s Margaret River estate.

The project is just the second proposal to go through the development assessment panel process in Cottesloe, following the approval of a $25 million apartment project near the Cottesloe Civic Centre last month.

However, that project was approved despite being recommended for refusal by Town of Cottesloe planning officers, who were concerned the proposal would impact negatively on the civic centre.