New vision for Newtown mill after $32m sale to prominent developer

Developer Cam Hamilton has new designs for this Newtown mill where previous plans were approved for more than apartments. Picture: Alan Barber

Hamilton Group is set to reshape the vision for a massive Barwon River development site where more than 300 apartments have been approved at Newtown.

Managing director Cam Hamilton confirmed the developer had acquired the landmark former woollen mill at 403 Pakington St, where the approved mixed use development was designed to reshape the urban landscape at the river end of Newtown’s shopping strip.

Contracts for the circa-$32m deal were signed recently, but it seems the developers are wasting little time turning the project around.

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A new vision will retain much of the mill complex at 403 Pakington St, Newtown, in a development similar to the Federal Mills precinct at North Geelong. Picture: Alan Barber

Mr Hamilton revealed the new vision would pivot the existing mill building to a project similar to the Federal Mills precinct, but with increased focus on retail and hospitality.

The 29,280sq m property would allow for substantial off-street carparking to support the precinct initially, which he said would move underground as the future medium-rise apartment projects moved into construction phase in the next five to seven years.

He estimated the new project, which would require a fresh planning permit, would include between 100 and 150 apartments, significant fewer than the 314 apartments and 29 townhouses Geelong’s council approved for the existing scheme last year.

Cushman & Wakefield agents Oliver Hay, Hamish Burgess, Joe Kairouz and Leon Ma were tasked with finding a buyer for the property through an international expressions of interest campaign.

But Mr Hamilton said the group had been eyeing-off the site for decades, having bought the woolstore building opposite at 400 Pakington St in 1995.

Mr Hamilton said the developer had engaged JAM Architects which designed the original proposal, including several apartment towers facing the Barwon River.

“We’ve had a couple of discussions, years back, but it wasn’t sale at that point,” he said.

Mr Hamilton said he’d seen rising demand from retail and hospitality operators at the river end of Pakington St precinct, while the mill complex offered about 15,000sq m of floorspace, substantially more than the 4000sq m on offer at 400 Pakington St and Rutland St.

“The interest that I started to get towards the end (of leasing 400 Pakington St) was a lot on the retail focus, and unfortunately we’d leased a lot of the street-facing spaces already,” he said.

“We’re going to do a commercial development in the existing building, probably a bit more of a focus on retail and hospitality rather than just purely office.

“Then we’re going to look at some apartments, and we’d have four or five blocks of seven storey apartment-type buildings facing the river.”

Developer Cam Hamilton, centre, said the experience at the nearly Woolstores complex inspired an increased focus on retail and hospitality in the new development. Picture: Alison Wynd

Mr Hamilton said the initial focus would be on the mill complex. The first apartment tower could be seven years away.

“We’re adopting a similar design (to the approved project) at the rear of the site, but really focusing on keeping the bones of the (mill) building itself intact,” he said.

“Rather than going out of the top of the existing buildings, we just will restore them, and add arcades and internal gardens as we do on all of our other sites.”

Mr Hamilton said the apartments could be a built-to-rent project.

Hamilton Group is consulting with Jam Architects, which designed the initial project for the site.

The property opened as the Returned Sailors and Soldiers Woollen Mill in 1920. The last textile manufacturer on site, Geelong Textiles and Geelong Dyeing relocating after being acquired by Australian Textile Investments in 2022.