555 Collins Street


555 Collins Street is a site located on the corner of Collins and King Street in the Melbourne CBD. Its current owner, Charter Hall has lodged a Development Application with the Minister for Planning for a new Premium Grade Office tower and has commenced demolition of Enterprise House, a 1970s office building that replaced the Second Empire Federal Coffee Palace.
In October 2018 Charter Hall Group, an Australian property investment group, bought the site, where they plan to build two office buildings. Charter Hall also owns the adjoining 55 King Street property, which they intend to develop in combination with 555 Collins Street.
Enterprise House, a 24-storey modernist concrete office building, replaced the Federal Coffee Palace on the site in 1973; the demolition galvanised preservationists in Melbourne. By the second decade of the 21st century it had become dilapidated and was eventually vacated. Harry Stamoulis, a Melbourne developer, gained special planning permission from Victorian Planning Minister Matthew Guy for a replacement building which would cast shadow on the bank of the Yarra River. In 2013 he proposed an office tower 82 storeys and more than 400 metres tall which would have been one of the tallest buildings in the world, but in 2014 he sold the property to Fragrance Group, a development company controlled by Singaporean Koh Wee Meng. Fragrance Group proposed a 302-metre, 82-floor mixed-use building containing apartments, offices, and a hotel, which was rejected by the new planning commissioner, Richard Wynne. After unsuccessfully offering the property for sale, in 2016 they gained planning permission for a 160-metre, 47-floor apartment tower sheathed in glass, designed by Bates Smart.