“We would like them to be used by like-minded creative professionals like architects and designers,” Kelvin Taing said.

Rachel Taing, who handles the company’s finances and projects, said the renovation had been careful to retain historic elements of the structure, including a large cast-iron safe used by the building’s original occupants, Melbourne Steamship Co.

Excelon lists four active projects, including several townhouse/apartment developments, on its books which have a focus on sustainability, Mr Taing said.

Projects include a six townhouse and a two apartment complex in Clyde Street in Thornbury, in Melbourne’s inner north. It was designed by Six Degrees Architects with input from the independent Moreland Energy Foundation.

The company is also undertaking a similarly niche-sized townhouse/apartment development at 100 Lothian Street in North Melbourne and is in planning for another development at a Yarraville site.

The Taing’s King Street office is located in a rapidly evolving part of the city’s west end that has seen escalating growth in land and capital values as multiple new apartments, hotels and office buildings are added in a locality once dominated by all-hours nightclubs and adult entertainment venues.

The bohemian State of Grace restaurant has relocated next door, opening its new premises over three levels at 27 King Street last week. The venue’s basement bar, Fall from Grace, is due to open in November.

The property also abuts rich lister Jonathan Hallinan’s 30-level hotel development, which was recently sold to InterGlobe from India.

Across the street, a Chinese investor last week outmaneuvered the Grollos – the joint owners of Melbourne’s Rialto Tower – to snap up an under-utilised, five-level office building at 26-32 King Street for $11.98 million.

Property developer and rich lister Paul Little’s Little Projects is building the 30-storey, 280 room Hyatt Centric hotel nearby at 9-27 Downie Street.

The building, overlooking Flinders Lane, will have a restaurant and rooftop bar.

In a further sign of a shift in King Street’s fortunes, Charter Hall signed a $140 million deal last week to take over a high-profile corner site on King and Collins streets from Singapore’s Fragrance Group which has sat empty for several years.

The building at 555 Collins Street was approved for a residential development but was abandoned by Fragrance after it failed to sell more than 46 per cent of the apartments in the complex.

Charter Hall is expected to develop the site into an office landmark, potentially amalgamating it with another block it owns next door to make a super site with the prospect of a $1 billion tower.