The Age newspaper has finally decided to quit its ageing Spencer Street headquarters in what promises to be one of Melbourne's biggest office lease deals of 2003. Owner Fairfax has gone to the market with a 15,000sqm requirement, targeting Melbourne’s abundance of upmarket office space to replace its ‘60s-style brown brick building.Australian Property Network is directing the search, which is focussed on a wave of new office developments that threaten to cause a glut of Melbourne CBD office space. The publisher of Australia’s once premier newspaper is already considering a short list understood to include the former BHP headquarters building at 600 Bourke Street.
BHP vacated 35,000 sqm at the AMP-owned Bourke Place property, but despite new signings there’s still 19,000 sqm on offer at the landmark property.The Age first went to the market almost six years ago seeking office space to replace its ageing building.Then, in the wake of its successful Murdoch-owned rival, the Herald-Sun, which had re-located to a new office tower in the Southgate complex, The Age considered space in Rialto – Australia’s tallest building – and the failed World Trade Centre.Despite refurbishing two floors of its Spencer Street complex, The Age also considered a move to Nauruan-owned Nauru House, 52-storey B grade skyscraper at the top of Collins Street.A move of out of Spencer Street has been widely tipped since the opening of a state-of-the-art printing facility near Tullamarine Airport meant to enable the ailing newspaper, whose daily circulation has dropped to an all-time low, to compete with Rupert Murdoch’s mass circulation Herald Sun and the national daily, The Australian.
