With a soaring demand for Purpose Built Student Accommodation (PBSA) across capital cities in the country, construction major Multiplex has confirmed that it has delivered Journal Student Living’s Market Way PBSA project at 100 Franklin Street in Melbourne’s CBD area.
The 40-level $194 million Market Way comprises a total of 715 rooms with 1010 student beds.
It has more than 3000 square metres of communal space, with resident amenities including a library, study rooms, gym, music and gaming rooms, cinema and rooftop terrace.
The four-storey heritage-listed Burbank House was retained as part of the development, and houses the library, kitchen, dining area, study rooms and entry lobby.
Multiplex says that Burbank House, which was constructed in 1840, was preserved and structurally upgraded using laboratory-tested timber and a rooftop steel truss.
Market Way also features over 350 square metres of retail space and a basement loading bay. A provision has been made for 172 bicycle spaces instead of on-site car parking.
Located in the Queen Victoria Market precinct, close to Melbourne, Victoria and RMIT universities, and was designed by COX Architecture.
“We’re proud to deliver this landmark Melbourne project ahead of schedule, setting a new benchmark for high-quality student living,” says Ross Snowball, Multiplex regional managing director for Vic and SA.
“We combined prefabrication and other construction innovations with our expertise in high-rise development and complex heritage restoration to fast-track delivery without compromising quality.”
The build included 983 off-site-fabricated bathroom pods, 300 precast panels with integrated brick façades and prefabricated column boxes with built-in reinforcement. A modular curtain wall façade, GRC (glass fibre reinforced concrete) planter boxes and pre-assembled rooftop plant were also manufactured off-site, adding further efficiency to the build.
The project is a result of a joint venture between Journal Student Living and Brookfield Asset Management. Markey Way is the second project as a result of that joint venture, the first being Campus House, a 452-room PBSA in the inner Melbourne suburb of Carlton area last year, which was also constructed by Multiplex.
A CBRE report titled ‘Accommodating the growth in students’ found that Australia has potential excess demand of approximately 185,000 student accommodation rooms, based on the gap between student renters and available stock, assuming suitable product was available.
PBSA penetration sits at seven percent, or around one student accommodation bed for every 15 university students.
Even with around 34,000 beds potentially added during 2026 through to 2029, that rate would increase to only approximately nine percent.
The country had 750,000 international students in early 2026, and nearly one in three university students is an international student.
Images: Supplied
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