David Jones Stores
Bourke Street, Melbourne
The David Jones (DJs) organisation owns three buildings that front onto Bourke Street Mall. Two are Art Deco treasurers - the former Buckley's Menswear Store at 310 Bourke (north side) and the former Coles Store at 299 Bourke (south side).
DJs is under taking a re-development of the stores, but is aware of the heritage of their buildings and the need to preserve as much of the fabric whilst still meeting their commercial needs.
They have demonstrated their committment to the heritage of the buildings by nominating them to the Victorian Heritage Register (a welcome change), and have been consulting relevant preservation groups about their plans. In a recent meeting with the project team, we inspected the plans and were impressed by their commitment to preservation. One major change will be to the bank of lifts in the north side building. In order to install a central set of escalators, the lifts will be dismantled, re-located to the eastern wall and re-constructed.
