The Met 
on Ellerslie

The plans to convert it into apartments were approved by the City of Hobart but experienced planning delays at the Resource Management and Planning Appeal Tribunal. Despite having an existing and separate approval for townhouses on the site and the appellant at the appeal having no issue with the townhouses, the Tribunal’s expert told the appellant it had no case but sought changes to the design which would have narrowed the townhouses to such an extent that they would have been less saleable. 

Frustrated by the Tribunal’s approach the JAC Group entered into an agreement with the appellant to withdraw its appeal in exchange for addressing their concerns directly and covering their costs while the Tribunal’s expert sat wondering where the parties had gone. These are just some of the obstacles faced by developers. After months of planning delays, the site was eventually approved for seven apartments with a design by Melbourne based CBG Architects and then it was sold off-the-plan during the Global Financial Crisis and construction of the fifteen-million-dollar development completed in 2012. 

The project involved two three-storey townhouses and five luxury apartments including one of Tasmania’s largest and most luxurious penthouses with a twenty-metre lap pool and spa, and unobstructed all-round views of Hobart. The Met Penthouse was ultimately sold to a prominent Tasmanian and his associated group for five million four hundred thousand dollars, which still holds the record for the most expensive apartment sold in Hobart.