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NISSAN Australia is 18 months away from moving into new national headquarters in the south-east Melbourne suburb of Mulgrave to become neighbours to automotive industry central offices of Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Mazda, Renault, Haval, Jayco, Robert Bosch and Repco.

The move marks the end of an era after Nissan opened its current office in June 1977 in Dandenong South, 10km south-east from its new headquarters now under construction.

The new building at 254 Wellington Road in Mulgrave will have facilities to take Nissan “to new heights”, according to Nissan Australia managing director Stephen Lester.

It will cover five floors of an eight-level building with more than 9000 square metres of office space, an 1850-square-metre workshop and 550 parking bays.

 

Stephen Lester and Martin Pakula

The building will house Nissan’s marketing, sales and customer service departments, Nissan Financial Services Australia, the Victorian regional office and technical training.

Nissan Australia plans to move into the new premises in mid-to-late 2020.

Nissan sold its current 11.4-hectare Dandenong premises in September 2017 to a private Victorian property group for an estimated $35 million.

The property has a two-storey office and three separate warehouse facilities – covering 27,584 square metres – on two titles.

As previously reported, Nissan Australia chief financial officer Stephen Hope said in 2017 that the primary reason for the sale was the conflict of insufficient office space for growing staff numbers and the move of the parts warehouse facility to CEVA Logistics’ facility in Truganina.

He said there were no plans “at this time” for Renault and Mitsubishi head office to share space with Nissan in the new building.

Mitsubishi has since announced it will remain in Adelaide and is planning a new headquarters, while Renault remains at its own office in Nexus Court, Mulgrave.

“Compared to when we built this facility 40 years ago, our business has – and is – changing and our needs are changing,” Mr Hope said in 2017.

“There are changes in technology and working practices that have resulted in new (building design) requirements.

“Some are related to how we train people and how we interact with other organisations and our regional office in Thailand and global office in Japan.

“Innovation is the core of our brand and therefore our new head office needs to reflect innovative approaches to business.”

In July last year, a new Alliance National Distribution Centre – for the Nissan, Infiniti, Renault and Mitsubishi brands – was opened as a shared parts and accessories warehouse at Truganina in Melbourne’s west.

This complex is located between Melbourne’s sea container terminal and the airport, has direct access to all interstate roads, houses more than 90,000 different parts, is more than 37,000 square metres in size and is part of a CEVA super site that is the largest logistics facility in the southern hemisphere.

The Nissan Casting Australia Plant, which manufactures a variety of parts for the domestic and export markets, remains in Dandenong South.

This plant operates three shifts a day for six days of the week and employs about 200 workers involved in manufacturing about 2.6 million die-cast aluminium parts and more than 16,000 towbars each year. The export value of the plant is stated by Nissan as $82.5 million a year.

It also makes parts for other companies and exports around the world. Parts are identified with the kangaroo badge and include components for the new Nissan Leaf EV.

By Neil Dowling

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