Mandarin Oriental to open first Australian hotel opposite Crown Melbourne
A $1.5 billion mixed-use tower planned for Queens Bridge Street, directly opposite Melbourne's Crown casino, has received state government approval and will deliver Mandarin Oriental's first Australian hotel, three years after an earlier attempt to bring the luxury brand to the country collapsed.
The tower, known as The One, will rise 71 levels and include 388 apartments, boutique office space, and 158 luxury hotel suites operated by the Hong Kong-based group. Developer PDG will also build 88 branded residences featuring apartments bundled with hotel services, a format increasingly in demand in the luxury residential market.
PDG Corporation managing director Vince Giuliano told the Australian Financial Review (AFR) sales activity had been strong even ahead of formal marketing material. "We've had, not surprisingly, really, really good interest. So we've already been selling quite a few apartments without any actual brochures or display suites or anything," he said. "There's a lot of interest from investors, but also there's been really good interest from people that are actually in the precinct that are looking for something new."
Apartments are priced between $650,000 and roughly $3 million, with around 200 (more than half those on offer) already under contract with deposits paid.
The result comes despite a softening Melbourne housing market, where prices have fallen 3.4 per cent over the past three months. Giuliano remains confident in the city's medium-term outlook. "[Melbourne] is cheaper than anywhere else in Australia, and I've pretty much put my neck out there and said that I almost guarantee that things will change," he said. "It's probably as bad as what it could be, and I pretty much am confident that over the next four years, which is when we'll finish our project, it will be better."
PDG acquired the site from Blackstone, which owns Crown Resorts, for $85 million in December 2024. The location had sat idle since Blackstone's 2022 takeover of Crown, after an earlier plan under previous owner James Packer to build a 90-storey tower linked to the casino by a sky bridge was shelved. That $2 billion proposal had drawn controversy after being approved directly by the former Labor government outside standard planning controls, before being abandoned when a permit extension was refused.
Giuliano said the site had long been on his radar. "[It's] something that we have looked at for probably 10 years and thought what if, what could be, and thankfully we've got an opportunity to make it work," he said. "As challenging as it might be, I think it's just a really great opportunity to create a legacy project."
Mandarin Oriental had originally been slated to enter the Australian market in 2023 via a Zaha Hadid-designed tower at 600 Collins Street, developed by Landream, with 196 guest suites and 148 branded residences. Landream later exited the project, selling the site to US developer Hines, which redirected the development toward a 60,000 square metre all-electric office tower approved in 2022.
The Queens Bridge Street project, designed by Cox Architecture, will incorporate the adjoining heritage-listed Queens Bridge Hotel. Completion is expected by 2029.
Jonathan Jackson, 27th August 2026
