Residential

Flexible Plasterboard Delivery Streamlines CBD Tower Development

From the former home of The Age building at 250 Spencer Street, Victoria’s largest residential development is taking shape. The first stage of West Side Place will house 1,376 one- and two-bedroom apartments over two towers, with over 4,500m2 of amenities including pools, a gym, cinema, karaoke rooms, catering kitchen, boardroom, business centre, study pods, library, and private wine bar. 

Stage 1 also includes the tallest hotel in the southern hemisphere: Melbourne’s first Ritz-Carlton at 270m high with 263 rooms. Probuild is constructing towers 1 and 2 on the project on behalf of Singapore’s Far East Consortium, to provide the ultimate luxury living experience in Melbourne’s CBD. Overlooking Southern Cross Station, the full West Side Place development will eventually deliver four towers ranging from 62 to 81 levels. 

Raising the Bar on Material Delivery

While West Side Place will raise the bar on luxury CBD accommodation, its construction has seen a new high in the levels of coordination between the builder, contractor Express Interiors, and linings provider Knauf since 2019. 

A project of this size requires a lot of technical and logistical support. In partnering with Express Interiors, Knauf has made regular visits; inspecting plasterboard installation on site for compliance and ensuring everything ran smoothly logistically. 

Knauf’s commercial makeup team in Somerton liaised with the Express Interiors team weekly on the levels needed to be loaded and delivered to site. For efficiency, Probuild provided two different delivery methods on site: ALIMAK and crane lift. 

According to Peter Bobroff of Express Interiors:

“The logistical challenges we have on this project are the PCS delivery schedule. We've got to be on time, every time. We have a 15-minutes slot per day to get the trucks in and then out, so everything has to run like clockwork.” 

He says a highlight of the partnership with Knauf was the direct contact with staff on deliveries, to meet these challenges. “Everything came on time and, if there were any holdups, we could communicate those holdups and adjust accordingly.”