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LONDON: Developers are swimming in from all sectors to join the boomers build-to-rent feeding frenzy.

Melbourne’s Docklands is consolidating its reputation as a build-to-rent hotspot as investment house AsheMorgan lodges an application to build more than 900 rental apartments across two towers at its District Docklands precinct.

The $700 million development is proposed for a one-hectare car park site at 24 Little Docklands Drive.

It is the next step in the evolution of the 10 hectare retail precinct, which AsheMorgan acquired for $150 million in 2015, and where it has spent $500 million transforming the former Harbour Town mall into a true mixed-use offering by adding office space, hotel accommodation, a fresh-food hub and new dining and entertainment options.

“We’re trying to pioneer a new inner urban experience,” AsheMorgan’s Victorian development director, Andrew Whiteside, told the Financial Review in February after the 211-room Nesuto apartment hotel opened its doors.

Offering a mix of studios, one, two, and three-bedroom apartments – as well as a raft of indoor and outdoor amenities including a wellness centre, sky terrace and dog park – AsheMorgan hopes District Living, as the project has been called, will cater to the needs of local families and professionals seeking housing close to the city.

A development application has been lodged with Victorian Planning Minister Sonya Kilkenny. If approved, AsheMorgan expects to begin construction in the second half of 2024.

The proposal adds to a string of build-to-rent projects at various stages of development in the Docklands area.

They include 550 rental apartments as part of a mixed-use project just up the road at 208-226 Harbour Esplanade being undertaken by the Liberman family and the Tim Gurner/Qualitas build-to-rent platform.

In May, Lendlease lodged plans for 500 build-to-rent apartments within a 24-storey tower at 907-913 Collins Street – opposite the Dockland Library – within its Collins Wharf precinct, while the Tarascio family’s Salta Properties is developing one of the precinct’s first build-to-rent projects at 699 Latrobe Street, adjacent to Marvel Stadium.

Just around the corner from Docklands in the Fisher-mans Bend urban renewal area, Samma Property Group’s 31-storey build-to-rent tower with 402 apartments at 194 Lorimer Street was approved by the planning minister in January.

Melbourne’s growing pipeline of purpose-built rental housing and its status as the country’s leading build-to-rent market was highlighted in a report published this month by veteran planner Brian Haratsis, the executive chairman of Macroplan.

With 2245 apartments already completed and a further 13,081 under development, Melbourne was the only Australian city that would have developed a build-to-rent market of scale by 2030, Mr Haratsis said.

By comparison, NSW has just over 3500 units operating or in planning, and Queensland has 4644.

AsheMorgan development director Mat Stoddart said Docklands was well suited to a well-designed build-to-rent development given the tight rental market, forecasts of significant undersupply of housing in the coming years and given two-thirds of Docklands residents already rent.

“Over 50 per cent of residents within Docklands are aged between 20 and 40 and almost 60 per cent are working as professionals or managers, making them the primary target market for BTR,” Mr Stoddart said.

Alongside the development of the two build-to-rent towers, AsheMorgan also hopes to connect them to the North Melbourne train station, which is 500 metres away via a footbridge overpass on Footscray Road.