Eureka towers over the sceptics

Premier Steve Bracks with Grocon CEO Daniel Grollo. Pic. Stuart Mcevoy of The Australian.

With fierce gusts blowing hair and scripts in all directions, Mr Bracks and Mr Grollo trumpeted the formal arrival of a building that has already become a city landmark.

``There isn't a person in Melbourne who doesn't have an opinion on Eureka Tower,'' Mr Bracks said.

Luckily, most of that feedback has been positive for the 92-storey edifice. At 300m, the Eureka Tower is higher than Melbourne's Rialto Towers at 252m but shorter than the Sydney Tower at 305m, and the 322.5m Q1 residential tower on the Gold Coast.

Yesterday's ceremony marked the end of formal construction of the tower, which has come to dominate the city's skyline since the first blocks were laid in late2001.

For Mr Grollo, chief executive of the building's developer, Grocon, the completed building is the culmination of a dream for the family company started by his father, Bruno, in the 1950s. ``I have a feeling of immense satisfaction today,'' he said.

The Grollos endured years of ridicule and scepticism when they first proposed to build the nation's tallest building alongside the Yarra river.

But Mr Bracks said the result was outstanding and had ``outshone even the vision'' of the Grollos.

The tower is 80 per cent occupied, with some apartments still for sale.

It has almost 900 residents and will have an observation deck on the 88th floor, which will be opened early next year.

The first person to move into the building, in late 2004, Stuart Bransbury, yesterday recalled how for 10 days he and his goldfish were the only residents.

``It was a bit weird, surreal really,'' he said.

``But I could turn the music up as loud as I liked.''

Mr Bransbury, who bought his apartment off the plan for $420,000, says he hasn't been bothered by the fact that a skyscraper was being built above him. The occasional whirr of a concrete machine was the only construction sound he recalls hearing.

He was more taken aback by the sight of two BASE jumpers floating down past his window after they made unauthorised jumps from the top of the tower.

``I had a bit of a double-take when I saw them,'' he said.

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