Second day delivery for regular mail products, still daily for small parcels, priority mail and express.
I suppose you can say they got it for cheap as chips. 
I am travelling out of Melbourne this morning. Just noticed that all the luxury brands outlets in the international terminal had closed and been boarded up, as part of the redevelopment. I wonder what they will be replaced with.
I saw some concept work. But I believe the whole area will be an open layout with windows overlooking the airport. A mix of new retail and cafes. Similar to what was there 10 years ago.
The luxury stores really didnât offer much.
1 Like
Canât believe the current owners of the Queen Victoria Building want to further destroy the heritage value of this retail space.
First, they added additional internal escalators that dominate the spaces. Then, they destroyed the heritage signs and internal shopfronts. Now, they want to remove the external stained glass windows that gives the building its character.
The Queen Victoria Building faces a push to remove some of its charm | 9 News
3 Likes
Isnât QVB heritage listed in some aspects? If not, it should be.
Completely ridiculous. Itâs look and feel (whatâs left of it) needs to remain as is. If we continue to destroy our 19th century buildings we will not have much left.
1 Like
It is but as the story explains, they can get around the heritage listings. They claim that stained glass impedes the view so customers canât see what retailers are selling. This is rubbish because the stained glass is only at the top of the windows.
4 Likes
Of course it is. Screw them - leave the windows alone.
2 Likes
Mecca have called time on their 17 year partnership with Myer.
They canât name one retailer that asked for the stained glass to be removed.
Theyâre not going to name them, because theyâre prospective tenants. In their planning application documents theyâve outlined a couple of (questionable) reasons why they want to do the work based on a failure to get tenants into the impacted spaces.
Time moves on - have never got this obsession with universally protecting heritage buildings in relatively new cities, especially buildings that were essentially riffing on older European/American design and arenât uniquely Australian (that goes for NZ, too)
1 Like
But if you donât protect something from 1898, then what hope is there to have any heritage buildings? Countries like Poland and Germany are actually spending millions of dollars restoring buildings to their original styles or altering/building new ones in that style.
We want to destroy what has slready been restored. The reason many people visit this building is because it has those heritage features and isnât a bland Westfield style shopping centre.
3 Likes
I take your point - but I think thereâs often a tendency to protect buildings just because theyâre old, rather than actually holding any real worth.
Iâm not advocating demoing the Opera House etc but I think to include buildings like this is only really advocating for protecting buildings because they fit a certain aesthetic, nothing about this is quintessentially Australian - itâs an import from other countries that yes, form part of where we come from but shouldnât get in the way of where weâre going.
Iâve been to QVB enough times to know that the glass thatâs there is plenty tall enough to handle what these âprospective tenantsâ want to do. Whatâs a metre of multicoloured glass going to do to them?
If youâre in retail, you have bigger issues than some panels of different coloured glass. Reject the proposal, move on.
2 Likes
I donât think it needs to be âquintessentially Australianâ to be of heritage value. I think youâll find all architectural styles all over the world borrow from from other designs and styles but that doesnât mean that is a reason to demolish snd destroy.
The owners of the QVB realised its heritage value snd painstakingly restored it to its former glory. The subsequent owners have done everything to remove all that hard work and remove its beauty and soul.
2 Likes
There needs to be a balance - just because weâre a 'newâish nation, doesnt mean we dont have heritage that is worth preserving. We also had a period in the 60s-80s where preserving history was far from a desirable outcome, so we also lost lots of preservable items of history.
But it has to be meaningful to save - weâve kind of gone down the path of saving lots of things of limited interest as a way of trying to balance the ledger.
It also needs to be able to function in a modern context, and sometimes that means needing to allow changes that arenât particularly sympathetic to the original intent of the building, but allow it to be successfully reused and retained in a high standard. (thats not to suggest that this is the case here)
The problem for the QVB is that retail entities now want largely homogenous, sterile spaces so they can put their own brand/style in, and that makes it challenging for places like the QVB to compete against the remaining retail space in the CBD. These examples given in their application give a pretty good indication why theyâre pushing for the change:
A global flagship lifestyle brand insisted upon a termination payment of $300,000 in the instance that permission to install clear glass is not obtained. In good faith, and due to recent feedback from the City of Sydney about the coloured glass, Vicinity Centres has proactively exited the negotiation with this brand for a cost of over $1,115,000 in lost rent. This lost rent is the calculation of the difference between the rent commencement of the previous tenant to new tenant.
A global luxury jewellery brand exited negotiations for the QVB corner tenancy and opted for an alternative heritage building because of its ability to enhance the façade to improve visual presence to street
A recent offer was made for the ground floor portion of the corner tenancy only because the mezzanine and L1 space was seen as undesirable due to the coloured glazing. The prospective vendor offered $1,050,000 less in annualised rent due to the visual impacts Imposed by the coloured glass, two thirds of the total rental amount for just one third of the floor area, providing a painful indication of how the lack of presence to street degrades the appeal and value of the majority of space within the tenancy by approximately $7.5mil over the first term of a lease.
Its hard to be convinced though that is a decent enough argument to support the change
3 Likes
I gotta say, I donât feel sorry for the owners of the QVB, or the retailers who want to screw around with something so minor as panes of glass.
You want something homogenous and sterile? Build it yourself. Or do something much more useful, homogenous and sterile and build a hospital. 
2 Likes
I think the key is that anything heritage protected needs to be funded for restoration and upkeep purposes. A historic building that isnât fit for purpose doesnât help anyone.
Any heritage listing proposal should come with where they plan to obtain the needed funds to keep up the maintenance of historic features - so that you actually do preserve it.