JUNE 10 2015

St Kevin's College flattens high density

plan to create world-class sports
campus Marc Pallisco
Staff and students of prestigious St Kevin's College who enjoy access to the Heyington train
station at the doorstep of their Toorak campus are readying to frequent another station two
stops away.

The school's grand plans to develop a 5.4-hectare Glen Iris parcel it bought from the Coles
Group in 2013 for a speculated $23 million are on track to happen before its centenary in 2018.

St Kevin's College has bought part of Coles' Tooronga property to create a sports campus.
St Kevin's College plans to build a world-class sports campus, including three soccer pitches
which meet Football Federation Victoria standards, a hockey pitch to International Hockey
Federation standards and 12 tennis courts. An oval for Australian Rules will circle two of the
soccer fields. The proposal also includes a 200-metre athletics track with high jump and long
jump training areas.

The sports campus will be noticed by M1 commuters, filling the gap between Gardiners Creek
parkland (which the motorway abuts), the Stockland Tooronga shopping centre and the Coles
Myer head office in Toorak Road.

Until recently, the St Kevin's College site, which is in walking distance to the Tooronga train
station, was earmarked by Stockland for high-density housing.
Stockland controlled the land from 2004, when it paid Coles $30 million for what was an 11-
hectare parcel. After developing apartment buildings, offices and shops on part of the block,
Stockland sold the undeveloped 7.7-hectare portion back to Coles in the 2011 commercial
property downturn. Coles on-sold the bulk of that land to the Catholic school after retaining a
section for a multi-level car park.

St Kevin's College said it searched for 10 years to find an appropriate site for its sports complex.
The school will enjoy an enviable marketing advantage: the Toorak campus is separated from
the proposed Tooronga sports field by the Malvern Baseball Oval and Kooyong Lawn Tennis
Club, which its students also use.

A large part of the school's proposed sports campus will be open to the community and other
schools. A few years ago, Scotch College, which is on the Hawthorn side of the M1, acquired
residences on the northern side of its campus with money it received after the government
compulsorily acquired its southern boundary for freeway widening.

In 2013, private girls school Genazzano FCJ outmuscled developers for a former Telstra
exchange centre in Cotham Road, Kew. The school paid $1.5 million for a 534-square-metre
parcel that abutted the campus tennis grounds.

Last year, South Yarra's Melbourne High School Foundation paid developer Michael Yates
$4.9 million for a portion of a former showroom site in Chapel Street. The school plans to
redevelop the site as a five-level gifted education academy.

In 2006, across town, Penleigh and Essendon Grammar outmuscled developers, paying $13
million for a 24-hectare slice of MAB's Translink business park. That Keilor Park block has since
made way for a sports campus. It allowed the private college to build a modern senior school
known as the "Infinity Centre" on an oval at its Keilor East campus, a few kilometres closer to
town.