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Tranby Buildings
Constructed in 1906, Tranby Buildings is being auctioned off on Wednesday 7 May 2025 (from 11am unless sold earlier).
Located at 577 Wellington Street in the Perth CBD, the heritage-listed building, set on a 916m² block, is being touted as a rare opportunity for redevelopment.
The only previous sales history for this site is listed for 31 March 2005, when it sold for $1,735,000. Ray and Sylvia Paolucci bought the building when it was in a rather dilapidated state.
Initially I expected it could sell for between $5m - $7m but particularly at the restored state the building is in today, particularly compared to the dilapidated state of it in 2005, I'm most certainly off the mark. Perhaps $12-15m is a better expectation, as a minimum.
Tranby Buildings - 90 King Street, Perth
Location
The auction listing for Tranby Buildings states that it’s located at 90 Kings Street. Many websites have followed suit, listing the property with this address, although numbers 86 and 90 are affixed to the building on the King Street side.
Kings Street was originally called King William Street and is believed to have been named after King William IV.
Landgate lists this property as 577 Wellington Street.
Google Maps feels like we’re stuffing a chicken, showing the building’s number as 6, 52 and 90 Kings Street, as well as 575 Wellington Street.
Perhaps resorting to advertising the property as located at 90 Kings Street helps keep it simple. It’s a small street and gives us a rough idea where the building is located when seeing or hearing the address. Wellington Street on the other hand, feels like it takes us halfway to Fremantle!
Naming the Building
Almost every listing of Tranby Buildings refers to it as Tranby House but there doesn’t appear to be any evidence to show that it has ever been known as that in the past. Upon being sold to the Paolucci family in 2005, the building was renamed as the Paolucci Building.
A 2021 photo of Tranby House (originally called Peninsula Farm) in Maylands
Tranby House, also known as its original name of Peninsular Farm, is located on the banks of the Swan River in Maylands. The English cottage-style farmhouse was constructed by Joseph Hardey and his wife Ann in 1839, after their two previous houses were destroyed by floods.
The name Tranby is taken from the 25.87m wooden cargo carrier which left Hull in Yorkshire, United Kingdom on 9 September 1929, arriving in Fremantle on 02 February 1930 with Hardey, his family and a number of other settlers.
Heritage Listings
1. Classified by the National Trust on 04 May 1981.
Assessing and classifying a diverse range of places since the late 1960s, listings don’t carry any legal implications, nor does it impinge on the rights of owners. Its purpose is limited to serving as a record of places with heritage value.
2. Registered on The Register of the National Estate on 25 March 1986.
The Register was a national list of heritage places, recognising buildings “as having significant natural, Indigenous or historic value”. Established under the Australian Heritage Commission Act 1975, listings were in effect to recognise the heritage value of a place, without carrying any legal implications. The Register was frozen on 19 February 2007, which meant that no further entry of places could be added or removed.
3. Listed on the Perth Draft Inventory on 31 December 1999.
Known as a Local Heritage Survey (LHS) and previously as the Municipal Heritage Inventory (MHI), its purpose is to “identify and record places of cultural heritage significance within the City of Perth”.
4. Adopted in the Municipal Heritage Inventory as a Category 2 on 13 May 2001.
The Heritage Act 2018 “requires each local government to identify places of cultural heritage significance in a local heritage survey (LHS)” with each place classifying the significance with a Category 1 (Exceptional level of significance) through to Category 4 (Little level of significance) (p.6)
Tranby Buildings, which carries a Category 2 rating of ‘Considerable’, is “very important to the heritage of the locality”. Like the above heritage record listings, inclusion on the inventory has no statutory effect, nor can it be relied upon when making decisions on development or subdivision proposals.
5. Adopted in the Local Heritage Survey as a Category 2 on 28 March 2023.
As above.
One of many businesses in Tranby Buildings
Future Development
Tranby Buildings is zoned Mixed-Use City Centre.
The City Planning Scheme No.2 - Street Building Height & Setback Plan for Tranby Buildings sets a maximum street building height of 21m nil setbacks.
A Maximum Plot Ratio of 5.0:1.0 is listed for the site, which is the maximum given by the City of Perth for all developments (p.58). Plot ratios are implemented to control the intensity of developments, specifically how dense a building occupies a site. Whilst no prescribed height limit is apparently set, which appears to contradict the aforementioned City Planning Scheme No.2 zone map, a 5.0:1.0 ratio represents a building that can be five times larger than the site’s area.
The auction listing on Belle Property’s website states that redevelopment could potentially reach up to 30 storeys high, subject to council approval. The listing also goes on to suggest that the substantial redevelopment opportunity is ideal for Purpose Built Student Accommodation (PBSA).
The near-complete $853m ECU City’s campus in Perth City Link, is set to open in time for 2026’s semester one.
ECU City before the cranes were taken down in early 2025
Student accommodation towers appears to be a priority for developers at the moment, due to a significant student demand:
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UniLodge Perth Central’s 30-storey student tower with 736 beds at 319-335 Wellington Street (which also provides accommodation for non-students) is set to be completed in October 2025
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UniLodge’s $80m 33-storey student tower with 832 beds planned for
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Erben Place’s 19-storey student tower with 1,100 beds planned for Perth City Link
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Fiveight’s recent development application including a 30-storey student tower to go with their proposed 17-storey hotel as part of the $400m revamp of Carillon City.
I was recently informed that Myers in Forrest Chase isn’t renewing their lease which is due to expire within a year or so and that it could become a campus for Curtin University. Apparently the information came from an article in Business News but I’m yet to verify this.
So far Perth City has completed student towers at 80 Stirling Street and the Switch Perth Central Student Tower at 555 Wellington Street.
