Salta tops out $500m Riverline build-to-rent in Richmond

Salta Properties has topped out its $500 million, 476-apartment Riverline build-to-rent project in Richmond, with operator Est due to start leasing about a year from now.

Why it matters

Salta Properties has topped out Riverline, the build-to-rent project at 25 River Boulevard, Richmond, in the City of Yarra. Real Estate Source reported the milestone on 12 October 2026 and updated its report on 13 October. The project is part of the wider Victoria Gardens precinct, about three kilometres from the Melbourne CBD, beside the Yarra River.

For the Melbourne build-to-rent market this is a rare thing: a large, institutionally scaled rental scheme that is physically near completion rather than still at approval or planning stage. Much of the discussion about build-to-rent in Victoria concerns pipelines and proposals. Riverline is one of the schemes where the structure is now complete and the question shifts from whether it gets built to how it leases.

The operator is Est, Salta’s own rental platform. Riverline is its second project. The first, 94 dwellings at 249 Queens Parade, Fitzroy North, opened in October 2024. Moving from a 94-dwelling building to 476 dwellings is a fivefold jump in the scale Est must lease and manage, and that is the real test the operator now faces.

Salta managing director Sam Tarascio Junior used the milestone to call for “a review of Victoria’s onerous Foreign Purchaser Additional Duty”, according to the report. The company also said the project adds much-needed housing supply to the city. The duty comment is the developer’s position, reported as such, and we have not tested it.

The numbers

• Value: about $500 million expected end value.
• Dwellings: 476 apartments across six buildings arranged around a plaza.
• Site: 25 River Boulevard, Richmond, beside the Yarra River.
• Start: ground was broken in June 2025, per Salta’s release and The Urban Developer.
• Completion: roughly a year after topping out. The report gives the third quarter of next year in its text and “late next year” in a photo caption, so the precise date is not fixed.
• Amenities: a 25-metre outdoor pool, wellness and fitness facilities, co-working spaces, a cinema, private dining rooms, a residents’ lounge and rooftop dining.

One figure needs care. Earlier coverage of the Yarra Council approval process described a scheme of 426 dwellings. Salta’s own groundbreaking release and the topping-out report both give 476, so we use 476. The report describes the project as topped out as a whole but does not say whether each of the six buildings reached full height at the same time, and it does not state storey counts. We have not supplied either.

What’s next

Construction continues through fit-out toward a completion about a year away, after which Est will begin leasing. The timing matters for the inner-east rental market. A building of this size delivering a few hundred apartments into the Richmond and Yarra catchment in a single release will compete for tenants against both existing stock and other build-to-rent schemes.

For developers weighing their own build-to-rent plans, the Riverline outcome will be an early read on achieved rents and absorption for large-format Yarra River frontage product. The point of comparison is Est’s first building in Fitzroy North, which has been operating since October 2024. Any performance data from that asset, or from Riverline once it opens, will be useful to anyone underwriting similar schemes. We will report leasing and completion updates when Salta or Est publishes them.

Our wider coverage of the state’s projects sits on the Melbourne market page.