One of Melbourne's largest and busiest intersections has been saved from an imposing, alien-like tower – just.
The proposal for a shiny, tentacled apartment complex on a corner of the Haymarket roundabout that connects Elizabeth Street, Flemington Road and Royal Parade on the city's northern edge was rejected last year.
In its place another, more subdued, 22-storey building will rise.
Both towers were proposed for a site occupied by the historic former Commercial Bank of Australia on the corner of Elizabeth and Pelham streets, a building now owned by the national peak body for nonprofit employment organisations, Jobs Australia.
Jobs Australia recently won a planning tribunal case against the City of Melbourne allowing it to go ahead with its high-rise apartment despite the council's objections.
The council had rejected the building saying it was too high, did not have enough setbacks and would overwhelm the historic bank underneath it.
The tower is designed to cantilever over the bank, but several shiny, alien-octopus-like, prongs connecting the new structure with the historic building have been removed from the latest design.
"We consider the 'void' space between the roof of the retained bank building and the lowest level of the new tower building provides a thoughtful, polite and respectful interface," the tribunal said when approving the project.
A greater portion of the heritage bank building will be retained under the new proposal and concerns about the tower's impact on PDG's apartment next door were resolved.
The peak employment body turned-developer had originally proposed developing the site in conjunction with the neighbouring property owned by developer PDG.
PDG and Jobs Australia's joint proposal fell over and PDG went ahead on its own and is now nearing completion on its Royal Elizabeth apartments, a 20-storey tower which abuts the bank site.
Jobs Australia's proposed apartment is on the other side of the roundabout from the recently completed Victorian Comprehensive Cancer Centre.
The ground level of the former bank building will be used as an office and small cafe facing Pelham Street, while the remainder, including the new tower, will have 77 one and two-bedroom dwellings.
The northern end of Elizabeth Street has been subject to intense development over the past decade.
Other nearby under-developed sites such as Bob Jane T-Marts to the west and the City Ford site to the north are also ripe for redevelopment.