Beacon Cove – Port Melbourne Historical and Preservation Society

The Leading Lights

Places, Planning & Preservation, Port Melbourne HistoryJanuary 28, 2022

Port Melbourne's beacons, also known as the leading lights, define the centre line of the Port Melbourne Channel. The light was visible for 14 nautical miles. Until superseded by more recent technology, the beacons guided vessels safely to the piers. In 1923 once the new Railway Pier, later Princes Pier, was fully operational, the Melbourne Harbor Trust wrote to…

103 Beach Street (formerly The Beacon Cove Foodstore)

Places, Planning & PreservationJanuary 13, 2022

July 2021 The site was purchased by Sydney-based developer Ilya Melnikoff in July 2021 for $16.65 million. This will be only their second project in Melbourne - the first being in Albert St, East Melbourne. The 1400 sq m site was acquired from Melbourne developer V-Leader, which paid $11.2 million for it in 2017. The development will be re-branded as Pier…

1-7 Waterfront Place, Port Melbourne (5)

Planning & PreservationJanuary 4, 2022

November 2021 VCAT arranged a compulsory meeting on Friday, 5th November between the developer, the City of Port Phillip, and other parties. Such meetings are scheduled with the intention of reaching a resolution. Unfortunately, there was no resolution. This means it will proceed to a Hearing from 23-25th March 2022, if an agreement has not been reached earlier. September 2021 The developer…

Now and Then 2021- Beacon Cove Towers

Port Melbourne HistoryAugust 2, 2021

Shrouded in Controversy Apartment Towers at Beacon Cove (2021). Photo: David Thompson, PMHPS Collection. This peaceful waterfront has been a centre of controversy many times since it was first occupied by Europeans in 1836. Surveyor Darke’s Camp, Sandridge. Watercolour by W.F.E. Liardet (1875) State Library of Victoria William Darke was one of the surveyors given the task of surveying the district…

1-7 Waterfront Place, Port Melbourne (4)

Planning & PreservationJuly 18, 2019

18 July 2019 The Victorian Supreme Court of Appeal refused the developer of 1-7 Waterfont Place's leave to appeal the Court’s earlier decision to uphold the Minister for Planning’s ‘call in’ of the planning application. The interpretation of 'seven days' was contested by the applicant. In July 2018, the Minister for Planning ‘called in’ the application for a ten-storey mixed…

1-7 Waterfront Place, Port Melbourne (3)

Planning & PreservationOctober 30, 2018

October 2018 VCAT was due to hear Waterfront's appeal of Port Phillip Council's refusal of their application on 30 July. On 23 July, the Minister for Planning, Richard Wynne called in the application. Waterfront appealed the Minister's decision to the Supreme Court which ruled in favour of the Minister on 22 October. November 2017 On 21 September, VCAT agreed to review the…

1-7 Waterfront Place, Port Melbourne (2)

Planning & PreservationMarch 11, 2017

Planning for 1 - 7 Waterfront Place March 2017 After several years of extreme neglect of the site, planning application 989/2016 has been made to the City of Port Phillip. The application proposes a single tower of 10 storeys wrapped around at the ground and lower levels with townhouses. A north-south pathway connects Beach Street to Waterfront Place. Setbacks to the heritage…

Beacon Cove 1997

Port Melbourne HistorySeptember 8, 2016

Beacon Cove 1997, and not a canal in sight. These photos were not taken with history in mind but with my 2016 eyes I see: * an area I have walked through almost every week since 1992; * what the 2nd stage of Beacon Cove looked like between the end of the site clean up and just after the start of construction; * most…

1-7 Waterfront Place, Port Melbourne (1)

Planning & PreservationSeptember 28, 2014

Fire at 1 - 7 Waterfront Place The damage done - Waterfront Place In the early hours of September 14th 2014, fire broke out in the buildings at 1-7 Waterfront Place. Fire crews arrived on site at 1.42 am. 70 firefighters attended the fire. The area formerly occupied by the Platypus Junction childcare centre was worst affected. The cause of the fire…

Station Pier Welcomes Liners

Port Melbourne HistorySeptember 25, 2014

Crowds welcome the Empress of Britain Imagine an MCG Grand Final crowd thronging around Station Pier. That is what occurred 6 April 1938 when one of the Golden Age of ocean liners, the Empress of Britain, berthed there. This crowd estimate was published in The Argus the following day. At 42,500 tons (43,181 tonnes), it was the biggest vessel ever to…

Acknowledgement of Traditional Custodians