She Built It: How Women Are Breaking Ground

FULL TRANSCRIPT:

DI GILLETT {Host] (00:02)

So Anne, power of women, what does that phrase mean to you?

 

ANNE  MICHAELS [Guest] (00:06)

The power of women is what happens when capable women take the lead, especially when the path isn’t built for us, because when we do, extraordinary things are built.

 

DI GILLETT {Host] (00:18)

That’s exactly right. And how, how very, very apt when extraordinary things are built. Because one of the questions we’re going to interrogate in today’s episode is what would you do if your dream building that you have watched your whole life suddenly came up for sale?

 

and this is a fabulous platform

 

where we showcase and celebrate the strength, resilience and achievements of women from all walks of life. And today we’re going to look down the lens and interrogate the world of commercial property development because it is one of the most male dominated industries. And what we’re going to look at today is what happens when it is a female led.

 

industry. So joining me in Chocolate Studios, ironically in South Melbourne in Australia, and there’s a connection to that location with today’s guest, is Anne Michaels, founder and managing director of SheBuilt. The woman who built a seven level award winning commercial development, the building she grew up next door to and is paving the way literally

 

for women in the construction sector. ANNE MICHAELS welcome to the Power Of Women Podcast.

 

ANNE  MICHAELS [Guest] (01:54)

Thank you, Di. It’s a pleasure being here. I really appreciate having met you and having this opportunity.

 

DI GILLETT {Host] (02:00)

I am in awe of what you’ve done, and I can’t wait to share that with our listeners. So before we talk about what you built, tell me about where you grew up, the connection to Clarendon Street, South Melbourne.

 

ANNE  MICHAELS [Guest] (02:17)

I actually grew up on Claridon Street, South Melbourne. My parents owned a shop there, which has also had ⁓ accommodation above. ⁓ So I was born there. They were running the business downstairs. I went to kindergarten in Dorca Street. I went to primary school at Eastern Road Primary, which is unfortunately no longer there. ⁓

 

That was our base. used to play in the lane behind the shop with other children. We used to see, I guess, many celebrities coming in and out of Armstrong Studios, which was behind our shop.

 

DI GILLETT {Host] (02:59)

Any ones in particular you remember?

 

ANNE  MICHAELS [Guest] (03:01)

Yeah, I remember Shirley Strong. Yeah. I remember Red Symons Yeah, and a few other different people, same people from Sherbet. ⁓

 

DI GILLETT {Host] (03:05)

Yes!

 

Yeah.

 

We’re of the same generation, All of that resonates. So your parents had a retail store as well, The Frontage. What was that?

 

ANNE  MICHAELS [Guest] (03:25)

shoe store. So my dad was a cobbler. He was an apprentice from the age of 14 and learned how to make shoes and repair shoes and then also work with leather goods. So they set up their business in that store. And then you can imagine the front of house was new shoes. So my mother was the salesperson and the front of house person. And my father would be in the back either making shoes or repairing pieces.

 

And if my mother wasn’t there, he’d pop out and be the face, but typically she was. Yeah.

 

DI GILLETT {Host] (04:01)

The connection to the area and growing up on Clarendon Street, did that shape in any way what you’re doing now?

 

ANNE  MICHAELS [Guest] (04:10)

It did immensely actually. Being born then, living there, I used to go back and forth to my parents shop for years and years. But life moves on and you enter different circles. And I recall going back there, can’t remember, 215, 216, with different eyes. So I’m not saying that I hadn’t been back at all, but I looked at it and I thought, oh my God, what’s happened? What’s happened to South Melbourne? What’s happened to Clarendon Street? It used to be

 

bustling. And now it just, it was mellow. There was no energy, no life. And I thought, oh, I don’t know, I had this connection. I thought, I’ve got to give back. I want to try and help. I want to try and change things. So that was a conscious thought. Didn’t know how I was going to do it. that’s what, yeah, that’s what I looked at.

 

DI GILLETT {Host] (05:03)

was a legacy thought. So you didn’t start out in property development. Your career path came through finance and what other sectors?

 

ANNE  MICHAELS [Guest] (05:15)

I did an economics with honours degree at Monash and I ended up in, my first, I guess, job was with Hewlett Packard. It an IT related company. I went through a graduate program and they suggested I go into their finance division. And after doing a little rotation there, I thought, actually I don’t want to go into finance. I want to go into the IT area. They said, well, we haven’t scheduled you for that area.

 

DI GILLETT {Host] (05:42)

Female

 

ANNE  MICHAELS [Guest] (05:43)

We put you in there and plus you have an economics degree, you don’t have an IT degree. I said, I don’t care. I really like it and I think I have the aptitude to do it. And that was one of the very early starts of… This is 80s.

 

DI GILLETT {Host] (05:56)

80s or 90s?

 

80s. Yeah, so unusual for a female in IT at that point.

 

ANNE  MICHAELS [Guest] (06:03)

And in my head was, look, I’ve studied economics, I understand all that, I’ve got it. I haven’t had worked experience yet, but I’m not going to go back and do another degree in IT. So what better way to capture that? So I did that for three years there and then I ended up in heading up the finance division for one of their software divisions. So I ended up going back into finance, et cetera, but I had my three year foundation in IT. So post that I did a…

 

few years with Village Roadshow, is a movies, worked a little bit with Village Roadshow production and learnt how they ⁓ made movies in funding sense. And that was really interesting because they actually sort of, they had a budget and they pre-sold the distribution rights to meet their budget. So they never seemed to be out of pocket. was if the movie wasn’t successful.

 

DI GILLETT {Host] (06:34)

entrepreneurial environment.

 

They’d already collected their revenue. If only we all had a revenue stream like that.

 

ANNE  MICHAELS [Guest] (07:03)

So that was interesting.

 

And after that’s when I end up the next nine to ten years in funds management, ⁓ which is a very, very mal-dominated investment, brokerage.

 

DI GILLETT {Host] (07:17)

had

 

this sort of leaning into male sectors right from the get-go, from the IT piece, funds management. So what was the transition then into property development? How did that come about?

 

ANNE  MICHAELS [Guest] (07:30)

That’s

 

an interesting one. I’d say my father, with his purchase of the shop that he had his business in, sort of that harnessed his interest in property. And I remember as child, he used to spend Saturday afternoons reading the age, the property section. It was like it became a little hobby. And then he often would go to auctions and inspections and eventually he would

 

invest. So being a daughter, he didn’t have any sons to his misfortune, I ended up taking along. So I sort of got this interest in property and by the time I was 28, I’d bought and sold four residential properties myself.

 

DI GILLETT {Host] (08:17)

How many 28-year-old women would have done that these days? There’s not many. And even then, I mean, that’s extraordinary.

 

ANNE  MICHAELS [Guest] (08:20)

No, I…

 

It is. It’s actually thinking back. At the time I thought it was normal. So for me all these things were normal, but I guess looking back at them they weren’t necessarily normal. Yeah. So then after I ended up in, you know, following my career and thinking I was going to run a division in the funds management area, because I was very good at what I did, was promoted and supported. And again, back…

 

DI GILLETT {Host] (08:27)

Yeah, no it’s not.

 

ANNE  MICHAELS [Guest] (08:48)

looking back at it, thought it was a very male-oriented industry. And at the age of 35 then I had a team of about five people reporting to me and two of them were men in their 50s.

 

DI GILLETT {Host] (08:59)

So you’d accelerated to leadership very early in your career. Yeah. So that was…

 

ANNE  MICHAELS [Guest] (09:03)

That was strange in itself. But, what happened was life sends you curveballs. And I got a really, really big curveball. ⁓ I chose to, you know, try and have a child and sort of mid-30s I was pregnant. ⁓ And I ended up, I guess when he was about 28 weeks, I ended up in hospital because there was issues.

 

I won’t go through all these years, he ended up, ⁓ I lived in hospital for a month before he was born on Mother’s Day. And I lived again in hospital with him for the next three months. And it got to the point where at the end of two months after he was born, we thought he was turned the corner, he was going to ⁓ improve, get well and come home.

 

and then there was a turn and after three months I lost him. So it sort of changed my perspective. I think back then I was always go, go, go. I’m going to do this. I’m going to have kids. Someone else will help me look after them and I’m going to keep doing what I’m doing. But that was like a big slap in the face. And I was never clucky or just

 

DI GILLETT {Host] (10:03)

I’m very sorry.

 

ANNE  MICHAELS [Guest] (10:28)

I was never focused on having children, but that did throw me for six. So at that point I said, that’s it, I’m going to take a break and I’m going to find something that I can do that supports me having children. That took me another three, three, four years. I stayed in the industry consulting and I had ⁓ my older son and after he was born,

 

That was when I stepped out and in 2002 bought my first commercial investment property. And I’d made a conscious decision to stop what I was doing in the corporate sector and switch to a sector where I knew something about it. I could use my skillset, but then I could operate my time zones. I could manage the, know. So that’s what made me switch. ⁓

 

DI GILLETT {Host] (11:18)

Yeah.

 

ANNE  MICHAELS [Guest] (11:26)

Be careful.

 

DI GILLETT {Host] (11:27)

Yeah, yeah. And I mean, life does that, doesn’t it? It does. It throws those ⁓ reckoning points. So you’ve come up through, very successfully, through traditionally male-dominated sectors. How was the construction industry in terms of acceptance of a female entering into their domain? Because there’s a few

 

ANNE  MICHAELS [Guest] (11:53)

Well…

 

DI GILLETT {Host] (11:57)

There’s quite a few female residential developers, but you’re in commercial development. It’s different.

 

ANNE  MICHAELS [Guest] (12:05)

Because they’re larger assets, they’re less, I guess, I don’t know, less creative in…

 

DI GILLETT {Host] (12:16)

But it’s less seen as less sexy. That’s right. Yeah ⁓

 

ANNE  MICHAELS [Guest] (12:20)

⁓

 

But to be fair, I guess the first half a dozen or so properties I built was with my ex-partner, male, and life partner as well. And it’s interesting because I didn’t have any problems being accepted because he was front of house in a way. Even though we went to the meetings together, we did

 

DI GILLETT {Host] (12:31)

The

 

ANNE  MICHAELS [Guest] (12:49)

most things together, there was this comfort level because there was a male present.

 

DI GILLETT {Host] (12:54)

level with the people on the other side of the table.

 

ANNE  MICHAELS [Guest] (12:58)

And whilst I did a lot of it, the funding, the fees, the leasing, the legals, the, you name it, that side of it, he would go to site and be the male presence. So in a way, that collaboration worked quite well until it didn’t. Yeah. And then once that didn’t work and the business parted and the

 

DI GILLETT {Host] (13:20)

Yeah. Yeah.

 

ANNE  MICHAELS [Guest] (13:27)

personal side parted, that’s when I sat back and thought, well, I’ve been doing this all my life. I’ve been working in male dominated industries. There’s no reason why I can’t. And actually I can. I’m going to do this. So that’s, I guess where she built was born. I sat back and thought, I’m going to do this.

 

DI GILLETT {Host] (13:42)

I’ve always been doing.

 

Yeah.

 

The

 

name itself is just fantastic. So tell me about what is behind the name. There’s a lot of intention behind the name.

 

ANNE  MICHAELS [Guest] (14:03)

The intention behind the name is not just to make it sound like a female name. The intention behind the name is to give women the opportunity to excel, to give women the voice, to give women openings into traditionally male-dominated areas. And there’s a lot of companies there that do have the women.

 

DI GILLETT {Host] (14:09)

Yep.

 

ANNE  MICHAELS [Guest] (14:30)

They’re in there, they’re engineers, they’re traffic experts, they’re disability experts, acoustic, you name it. But they seem to be a little bit more hidden in their company. They’re not always the front. Yeah. So I went about with the intention that my team was going to be women and that was it. So.

 

DI GILLETT {Host] (14:49)

person.

 

ANNE  MICHAELS [Guest] (15:00)

My first port of call was to try and find a female ⁓ architect, a female town planner. ⁓

 

DI GILLETT {Host] (15:07)

hard is that to do in spaces because architects would be dominated by males historically?

 

ANNE  MICHAELS [Guest] (15:15)

But for large projects,

 

Females tend to do a lot of the smaller projects a lot more. So I actually went to a talk, I guess it was, or a launch of something called Marion’s List. I found it, I Googled, I was looking for women builders, women architects, and I came across Marion’s List and they said that they were doing the launch of it.

 

DI GILLETT {Host] (15:22)

interiors

 

ANNE  MICHAELS [Guest] (15:43)

down at the Botanical Gardens in St Kilda Road. I I’m going to go this. I gate crashed. So I went and sat and listened and it was amazing. they launched Marion’s List, which is basically a list of female architects. So when people in the, I guess, publications or the media said that they were looking for a quote from an architect,

 

Marion’s List was a ⁓ source of finding architects that they could get quotes from, that they could interview, that they could ask for their expertise because they always used to say, ⁓ sorry, we couldn’t find a female. So we quoted this particular male, we quoted this male, we quoted that male. So the whole reason behind Marion’s List was to create a source for that source.

 

DI GILLETT {Host] (16:15)

Yep.

 

Fantastic.

 

Because we can all think of many, many famous architectural names which are male with only a very small number globally of award-winning recognised female architects.

 

ANNE  MICHAELS [Guest] (16:55)

So that’s why ⁓ I went. And once they finished the launch and the discussion, I went and networked and said to them, this is what I’m doing. I’m set up my company’s called SheBuild. I’m going to develop a commercial building and I want female leads. Who do you recommend? And that’s where it started. So they introduced me to my architect who’s Claire Scorpo from Agius Scorpo.

 

DI GILLETT {Host] (17:17)

And that’s where it starts.

 

ANNE  MICHAELS [Guest] (17:25)

And then she introduced me to a town planner and we met Sandra Rego from Hanson Partnership and the three of us got together to start the process in terms of the architectural planning, the permits, and that was a two to three year project in itself.

 

DI GILLETT {Host] (17:43)

Yeah, so just the intent behind doing it. how did the industry, the broader commercial property industry respond to you setting this up?

 

ANNE  MICHAELS [Guest] (17:54)

at first I think they thought it was just some sort of fun thing.

 

⁓ until we actually had our permits and then we were going to tender. So one of the requirements of tender was we want a female lead. And so that people started taking you seriously thinking, ⁓ okay, so we can’t just tender as we normally do. We have to think about it and put forth somebody. Some organisations genuinely had people that they could put forth.

 

DI GILLETT {Host] (18:31)

Yep.

 

ANNE  MICHAELS [Guest] (18:32)

And others didn’t. And it was interesting how they managed that because they would put people that didn’t have the skill set forward just for the sake of doing it. And I said to them, the intent is not to belittle you, but it’s to plant the seeds. Plant the seeds that projects like this will come about and they’ll look for females.

 

DI GILLETT {Host] (18:41)

Yeah.

 

Yeah.

 

ANNE  MICHAELS [Guest] (19:02)

So you need to think about that in your future planning, your future organisation. There was a lot of seed planting back then. But over time we managed to secure many or most of them were all female consultants. 30 of them.

 

DI GILLETT {Host] (19:17)

the project team.

 

And has that had sufficient cut through that that is now resonating across the sector? Can you see a difference from where you started?

 

ANNE  MICHAELS [Guest] (19:29)

Yes, it has. And the other thing it did was we had nine babies born during that time. ⁓

 

DI GILLETT {Host] (19:32)

That’s amazing.

 

from the team. Still

 

managed to work. How amazing.

 

ANNE  MICHAELS [Guest] (19:43)

Someone

 

would take some time off and then they’d come back. ⁓ And we made room for it. It wasn’t like, my God.

 

DI GILLETT {Host] (19:46)

Yeah

 

Well, there’s a lesson for so many organizations. Just the mere fact that you say you made room for it.

 

ANNE  MICHAELS [Guest] (19:58)

It was just, it was part of it. And actually my architect I met when I first met her, she didn’t have any children. And then she had two through the projects, as she calls the project that we developed together, her third child.

 

DI GILLETT {Host] (20:11)

⁓ Yeah, that’s incredible. I mean, if you’re talking about leaving a legacy and leaving a mark, I therein lies it is. So how many women-led construction, commercial construction businesses are there to your knowledge in Australia?

 

ANNE  MICHAELS [Guest] (20:33)

To my knowledge I couldn’t even tell you four of them.

 

DI GILLETT {Host] (20:35)

Yeah, well… Yeah. Yeah, so you’re in rarefied air. Yeah.

 

ANNE  MICHAELS [Guest] (20:40)

There are, as you said earlier, residential or smaller and interiors, but to actually do a sort of seven-night story building, corporate building, there’s not many that are not.

 

DI GILLETT {Host] (20:53)

Yeah, that’s

 

incredible. That’s incredible. So if I said, of industry, what would you say to women breaking into male dominated sectors? Stay and fight or go and build something yourself?

 

ANNE  MICHAELS [Guest] (21:09)

Good question. I would say depending where you are in your career and what the opportunities are, there’s no reason you can’t stay and fight because you can do it. You can succeed. Don’t ever assume you can’t because that’s the weakness that they would sort of work and play on. ⁓ But if it’s not working there, don’t be scared.

 

DI GILLETT {Host] (21:33)

Play on.

 

ANNE  MICHAELS [Guest] (21:39)

Don’t be fearful because you can do it and if you’ve got the idea and it’s not working where you are, go and start something new.

 

DI GILLETT {Host] (21:46)

Yeah.

 

Yeah. Fantastic. And you’re the example of it. And I’m talking with Anne Michaels, founder and MD of SheBuilt. And coming up, we’re going to talk about Anne’s flagship development.

 

If you’re loving the Power of Women podcasts, be sure to jump onto our YouTube channel and hit that subscribe button to ensure you never miss an episode. And I asked the point about women in the construction sector and it really was an anomaly at the time. I mean, you’ve had to find resources that weren’t previously there.

 

In so doing, what impact do believe you’ve had on the sector?

 

ANNE  MICHAELS [Guest] (22:36)

I truly believe that I’ve helped to normalise women in the building industry. I think I’ve created it like a precedent ⁓ and although it may not be fully accepted or fully the norm, it has become a lot more normal. So if I had to do it again, like if I said, I’m going to pick up

 

another property in the next year and I’m going to go through the same process. I don’t fear it at all. I think that the support would be there because it’s been done before. ⁓ So I think I’ve done quite a bit in normalising something that wasn’t quite normal.

 

DI GILLETT {Host] (23:21)

Yeah, broken down preconceived views. And have the businesses and the men that you’ve been dealing with acknowledged in any way the transformative nature of what you’ve done?

 

ANNE  MICHAELS [Guest] (23:34)

I think they have, a few of them have, a few of them still have chips on their shoulders, but I mean that’s the beauty of being human. ⁓ I think more importantly the women have accepted it and there was women that took leads in this project that weren’t leads in their own corporate environment.

 

and they have now enabled to step up and be seen. ⁓ And I’m hoping that was one of the attempts of setting up Shearbuilt is to give women the opportunity to grow in themselves. And I think that has also been one of the outcomes.

 

DI GILLETT {Host] (24:05)

Yeah.

 

Yeah, because as you rightly said, some of these women were already in roles, but they were hidden. weren’t at the forefront. Yeah. That’s an incredible legacy. What more would you like to see happen?

 

ANNE  MICHAELS [Guest] (24:35)

I’d like to see female builders. Now, there’s a bit of a distinction here. So we’ve got our consultants, so my engineers, so whether it’s electrical, mechanical, hydraulic, ⁓ civil engineers, there was the traffic that I can go through, there’s 30 of them. But actually having a commercial builder’s licence, I struggled.

 

to find a female head of a building company. That’s where I think there is still inroads to be made.

 

DI GILLETT {Host] (25:15)

Have you got a to run that?

 

ANNE  MICHAELS [Guest] (25:17)

I have to go and get my builder’s licence. Yeah, why not? Why not? But yeah, I think there is ⁓ room for women to step into that and take that on.

 

DI GILLETT {Host] (25:31)

I know in my own world of having done a couple of renovations and it was always a surprise when you’d walk into the build on any given day and there’s a female chippy or some such thing and it was a delight to see but it was not that often seeing girls in hard toe cap boots and on site.

 

ANNE  MICHAELS [Guest] (25:54)

a lot more now,

 

a lot more at that ground level, there’s a lot more at the consulting level, there’s a lot more females overall, but the actual head of a building company, I only knew of one. that’s

 

DI GILLETT {Host] (26:13)

Yeah,

 

the terrified air. Yeah. Wow. So let’s get into the project that I think defines everything she built was all about with Via on bank. in 2017, the building you grew up next to in South Melbourne came on the market. What did you do?

 

ANNE  MICHAELS [Guest] (26:34)

⁓ I was excited. I’ve been looking for a project for the last 12 months prior to that, maybe a little bit longer. And I wanted a project that would make a difference. And I had my, she built business name and company set up and I was just looking for something, all sorts of areas. And when this came up, it was like, my goodness, is this meant to be because it was right next door to the building I grew up in. It was right next door to my

 

my parents’ ⁓ and when the site became available, the next door one, it’s on a corner, but it wasn’t a large enough site for someone who didn’t own or have access to the property next door to create. So I thought this has to be.

 

DI GILLETT {Host] (27:23)

Too

 

difficult to build on, to get access. Do you believe in fate?

 

ANNE  MICHAELS [Guest] (27:25)

Yeah, was just, and was,

 

well, I did then, I did at that point. Yeah, and that was like, hello, I think this one’s meant for me. So I did all my numbers and I had to actually go speak council beforehand because at the back of this heritage building, was built in the 1880s, in the 1970s, ANZ built some attempt at a heritage replica.

 

in the back which wasn’t original. So I had to make sure that the council would be okay with that 1970s component being taken down. As if they weren’t then the whole building envelope wouldn’t make sense. So it’s quite a bit of work to do that. So when we got that, those boxes ticked.

 

So then at that point I set myself a target at the auction and went to an auction. Again, the auction was amazing because it was all men.

 

DI GILLETT {Host] (28:25)

going

 

to say were you the only female bidding? Yes.

 

ANNE  MICHAELS [Guest] (28:27)

And not only was it was on a corner, so you had people down one side of Bank Street, the other side of Clarind Street and the auctioneer right in the corner looking on one side, looking on the other and they gave us paddles. ⁓ So you couldn’t even hide when you were bidding. was like, anyway, so I was.

 

DI GILLETT {Host] (28:44)

Yeah. Like

 

being a classic art auction.

 

ANNE  MICHAELS [Guest] (28:49)

And

 

it’s funny when you actually heard about the auction months later or hearsay from people. ⁓ yeah, think some, it was an Asian company that bought that. It’s like, hello.

 

DI GILLETT {Host] (29:03)

they weren’t even acknowledging it

 

because they wouldn’t have even thought that a female was going to

 

ANNE  MICHAELS [Guest] (29:08)

So

 

perhaps I thought I was buying on best half of

 

DI GILLETT {Host] (29:11)

someone as a buyer’s agent rather than as a developer.

 

ANNE  MICHAELS [Guest] (29:15)

But anyway, that was the purchase experience, was good. And then, as I mentioned before,

 

DI GILLETT {Host] (29:23)

So the preconceived ideas started right from that point, well actually before then, but it played out in public on the side of the street.

 

ANNE  MICHAELS [Guest] (29:32)

Yep.

 

It’s actually another thing. I don’t think I’ve seen many females ⁓ at auctions of that level. But perhaps they don’t do as many auctions these days.

 

DI GILLETT {Host] (29:46)

there’s not females, you can think of four heading construction companies. So they’re in line. What happens? So you’ve purchased the building, what year?

 

ANNE  MICHAELS [Guest] (29:57)

It was around 2017, end of 2016, early 2017 and then there was still a tenant in there for a couple of years and that’s the time we used for our planning and permits, etc.

 

DI GILLETT {Host] (30:10)

So we’re getting rapidly close to 2020. So you’re at the pointy end of this and COVID hit.

 

ANNE  MICHAELS [Guest] (30:18)

COVID hits and what a hit.

 

DI GILLETT {Host] (30:21)

So that’s significant personally and financially and dealing with heritage approval, supply chain failures globally, ⁓ everything shutting down. What did that period look like for you?

 

ANNE  MICHAELS [Guest] (30:36)

It was,

 

It was daunting to start with because we didn’t know what to expect. We had no idea. So I had a choice at the start. Do I keep going with this approach? Do I start it? Do I not start it? I chose to start because like anyone at the time, you thought COVID, what’s that? That’s not going to be around for that long.

 

DI GILLETT {Host] (30:59)

No, it’s

 

a bit like a Middle Eastern wall. So it’ll be over in a couple of weeks somebody said to me a month and a half ago.

 

ANNE  MICHAELS [Guest] (31:06)

So I enter this phase of we’re shut down, we’re open, we’re shut down, we’re open, we’re building, we’re not building. We’ve got, tradies, but no, we don’t have tradies because they can’t work or they’re often some government project. ⁓ we have got no supplies or the prices increases. We’ve got no goods because they’re stuck on a ship somewhere else. So there was all sorts of battles for.

 

a long time that I hadn’t anticipated. Because of all the years I’d been doing it before, I’d never built you in COVID. No. I didn’t even know what COVID was. And it’s funny when you think back at the time, because it started March 20, and I’d

 

DI GILLETT {Host] (31:53)

13th

 

March the world shut down. I remember emptying out my office on a Sunday.

 

ANNE  MICHAELS [Guest] (31:57)

I turned dirt, I think in about August, September 19. So I was already.

 

DI GILLETT {Host] (32:03)

brush.

 

You’re committed. You didn’t have an asset that you could rent out or do anything. It was down. It was an empty site.

 

ANNE  MICHAELS [Guest] (32:13)

So when we were opening and closing and opening and closing, I’m thinking, when’s this going to finish? And everyone back then thinking, okay, we got to the end of 20, it’s 21, new year, this is going to be good. It’s going to be better than it was last year.

 

DI GILLETT {Host] (32:30)

It wasn’t.

 

ANNE  MICHAELS [Guest] (32:32)

And so, and again at the end of 21, going to 22, then still was. And so then I’ve had delays. I’m supposed to have finished within about two, two and a half years and we’re going into the third, third and a half year. I’ve then got 11 rate rises. So not only have I had so many hurdles along the way,

 

DI GILLETT {Host] (32:39)

and ended

 

ANNE  MICHAELS [Guest] (32:58)

so many delays along the way and then my costs have escalated. I couldn’t even tell you. Extraordinary.

 

DI GILLETT {Host] (33:07)

And we’re almost facing into that again, are we not? Because global supply chains are throttled. I spoke to somebody in the industry yesterday and they said PVC piping has gone up 40 percent. So there’s your plumbing bill gone through the roof.

 

ANNE  MICHAELS [Guest] (33:25)

It has. have a friend that works for Rees and they said we can supply what we have, but as soon as we run out, we have to pay the new prices. So it was a horrendous time and I was I guess like

 

DI GILLETT {Host] (33:42)

How

 

did you cope personally?

 

ANNE  MICHAELS [Guest] (33:44)

Some days I was up and out, it’s strong, you know, I can do this. Other days, evenings, nights, I’d be up at two, three in the morning, couldn’t sleep, stressed as getting up, taking 50 million notes to try and get things out of my head onto paper. Other times when it was really bad, really bad, I’d find myself curled up in a ball. Literally. On the floor of my rope, walk-in rope, just curled up thinking.

 

rocking? When’s this going to stop? How am I going to get out of this? How am I going to complete it?” It’s not just the, it was a huge financial burden, but it’s not just that burden, it was the vision that I wanted to create. had to fight and battle because I wanted to get to the end of this vision. I wanted to finish the creation.

 

DI GILLETT {Host] (34:34)

What

 

got you through?

 

ANNE  MICHAELS [Guest] (34:37)

sheer determination, contingency after contingency after contingency, which I allow for, but I’d never predicted that much contingency required. And then we get to the buildings now close to finished, COVIDs, we’re out of COVIDs, we’ve still got our high interest rates, but lo and behold, our lovely benevolent leaders say, you don’t have to go work back in the office, you can stay at home.

 

What have I built? Why did I build the office? Because I had to go to work to activate South Melbourne, to have people going into the office, coming down, spending at the shops, buying their food, you know, their…

 

DI GILLETT {Host] (35:08)

An office. People go to work.

 

The

 

Listeners, we’re based in Melbourne, in Victoria, and it’s a completely different game down here.

 

ANNE  MICHAELS [Guest] (35:30)

very, very different. I’ve completed, finally got through, completed an office building and ⁓

 

DI GILLETT {Host] (35:37)

And the demand for officers is zip.

 

ANNE  MICHAELS [Guest] (35:40)

absolutely zip and there’s no support from the government, none whatsoever.

 

DI GILLETT {Host] (35:44)

No, there’s more so. They’re actually mandating to say we’re going to legislate that employers have to put it into contracts to work from home.

 

ANNE  MICHAELS [Guest] (35:55)

start me with that. is there is so many things that’s wrong with that. So, so many things but I’ll just say one of them is they’re creating a divisive workforce. Correct. If you’re in services you don’t get to work from home. Yeah, exactly. If we work in office we’re special. We get to work from home. How ridiculous is that? ⁓

 

DI GILLETT {Host] (36:17)

And all the informal learnings of osmosis and being surrounded by knowledgeable people gets lost in that transference of knowledge. I mean, we could talk about that forever. So, tell me, what did you learn about yourself in that? Because, I mean, none of that’s easy, either personally, financially, emotionally, none of that’s easy. What have you learned about yourself through that,

 

ANNE  MICHAELS [Guest] (36:45)

that I can do it, that I survived. I had a vision and I delivered.

 

DI GILLETT {Host] (36:46)

Yeah.

 

So the building was finished when?

 

ANNE  MICHAELS [Guest] (36:56)

roughly August 24 and I was very, very lucky. I was able to lease the building in a very, very difficult environment and that assisted with the delays and all the increased costs that I had along the way.

 

DI GILLETT {Host] (36:58)

Yep.

 

This building’s got a lot of emotion in it. The design philosophy leans into your story, into your heritage, does it not? Can you share some of that with us?

 

ANNE  MICHAELS [Guest] (37:27)

Yes.

 

⁓ When I gave the brief to my architect, I said two things. One, I want a glamorous building.

 

DI GILLETT {Host] (37:40)

In male construction briefs, I want a glamorous building. I love that. I love that.

 

ANNE  MICHAELS [Guest] (37:46)

And two, I want to, ⁓ I guess, give homage to my heritage in the area ⁓ and also to the heritage of the building. So when Claire sat down and we worked on the design and what it’s going to look like, she incorporated ⁓ heritage of my parents.

 

DI GILLETT {Host] (38:13)

Which is Greek heritage.

 

ANNE  MICHAELS [Guest] (38:14)

Yeah.

 

Also being a cobbler. So when you look at working with leather, she had the idea of platting leather. When you plat leather and you create like a triangular pattern when you’re the plat. you’re doing the Yeah. So if you look at the building, there are triangular patterns across all the glass facade.

 

DI GILLETT {Host] (38:30)

process yet.

 

ANNE  MICHAELS [Guest] (38:42)

engraved into the concrete panels, in the tiling, in the bluestone, and that was her interpretation of working with leather and leaving a legacy of my parents in the actual building. beautiful. ⁓ We also then wanted to give heritage or homage to the fact that ⁓ we’ve, the first, I guess, owner has no longer got a bank.

 

in the building, the building, the 1818s building was built as a bank, the bank up until I took over. we give homage by, you know, representing the disused one cent, two cent coins and we’ve used copper everywhere in the building. And then we’ve used lot of emerald green because we’re in part of the Emerald Hill was original.

 

DI GILLETT {Host] (39:15)

Yes.

 

South Melbourne, Enrode Hill.

 

ANNE  MICHAELS [Guest] (39:35)

And then we created a connectivity between the old building and the new building. So the new building is almost, it’s a singular facade. It’s almost like a curtain backdrop to the heritage building in the front. We call the heritage building like a ballerina on a stage. And the new building in the rear is like a curtain for that stage. And then that building then has a connection with a lift well and a court chard.

 

in the middle which connects the old with the new. And it’s like creating a meeting place for people to work. And Bank Street’s actually, people think Bank Street was called Bank Street because it was a bank, but it was actually an embankment. was a meeting place for the original owners of the land. And they used to have a meeting place up where the town hall is. So,

 

DI GILLETT {Host] (40:09)

Hagora, Hagora.

 

Loaded with heritage and backstory. Do you think a male could have interpreted your design vision?

 

ANNE  MICHAELS [Guest] (40:40)

No.

 

DI GILLETT {Host] (40:41)

It needed a female touch.

 

ANNE  MICHAELS [Guest] (40:43)

Yeah, it needed the female connectivity.

 

DI GILLETT {Host] (40:49)

And that’s not disrespectful in any way to me. It’s just understanding it at that level. You’ve used curtains, ballerina, glamour.

 

ANNE  MICHAELS [Guest] (40:57)

Glamour, ⁓

 

beauty. created, the specification is different to what you would normally do on a site. Normally you say, I’ve got this much land, I can go this high, I have to set back this much.

 

DI GILLETT {Host] (41:16)

It’s all built

 

around finance and commercial return.

 

ANNE  MICHAELS [Guest] (41:21)

These are the numbers and this is what’s going to make it work. I said at the outset to Claire, yes, I want it financially viable, no, my job is not to stack an envelope or a site with what you can put on it. I want it to be a legacy. I said to her, I want it to be a heritage building in its own right when I’m not here in a hundred years. That’s what I wanted.

 

DI GILLETT {Host] (41:29)

The detriment of

 

truly beautiful.

 

Yeah, so there’s your legacy.

 

And tell us about the name.

 

ANNE  MICHAELS [Guest] (41:52)

The name is Via on Bank. Now, I don’t know if you know much about Via. Via is a Greek goddess and she is sister to Nikita. ⁓ And Nikita is actually short, is for short, Nike. Yes. So don’t know if you knew Nikita, which is the goddess of victory, is what Nike named.

 

DI GILLETT {Host] (42:16)

We

 

the just do it philosophy.

 

ANNE  MICHAELS [Guest] (42:20)

So Via is her sister and Via is the goddess of power, raw energy.

 

DI GILLETT {Host] (42:27)

I’ve got goosebumps.

 

ANNE  MICHAELS [Guest] (42:29)

And what better connectivity, ⁓ because I actually looked at, when I was looking for names for the building, was thinking, I think I feel victorious. I think I’ve won something here because of the fight in the building coming up. And so I looked up, yeah, I thought I was the first person to thought of this. So I looked up victory, goddess of victory, and was Nikita. And I’m thinking,

 

I never jelted Nike had named themselves.

 

DI GILLETT {Host] (42:59)

I hadn’t either. ⁓

 

ANNE  MICHAELS [Guest] (43:01)

So then, found V as her sister and she was just as strong and powerful and yeah.

 

DI GILLETT {Host] (43:08)

Awesome. And when did your parents, did your parents get to see the finished building?

 

ANNE  MICHAELS [Guest] (43:13)

Yes, they did. They’re elderly, 93 and 88. They did see it partly when it was being built, but I took them through when it’s finished and they were just blown away. It’s not something that they could visualise. It’s not something they imagined. And Bless Their Souls, one of the things that they wanted to do

 

DI GILLETT {Host] (43:19)

Hi.

 

ANNE  MICHAELS [Guest] (43:41)

was to walk into where their shop was. It’s different, so different now. It’s just another retail type shop, it’s… They spent like years, nearly 50 years there. So, yeah, they’re extremely proud. And my mother’s sister came to visit recently. I haven’t seen each other for, I don’t know how many years.

 

DI GILLETT {Host] (43:44)

Yeah. Correct.

 

I must be very proud. Their lives there.

 

ANNE  MICHAELS [Guest] (44:10)

And that’s where she wanted to take her. She wanted to take her.

 

DI GILLETT {Host] (44:13)

show what my daughter had built. Yeah. Well done. That is truly, truly incredible. And you’ve won awards with the building, yeah.

 

ANNE  MICHAELS [Guest] (44:16)

So yes, they’re very.

 

Yes, my architect one emerging architect of the year. ⁓

 

DI GILLETT {Host] (44:28)

wow, that’s a big statement.

 

ANNE  MICHAELS [Guest] (44:31)

And then we’ve also won the ARCHIE Awards for best commercial building. ⁓ And we’re actually taking judges through next week for design and development award for City Port Phillip.

 

DI GILLETT {Host] (44:46)

Wow. So have you achieved with the project what you set out to achieve or more?

 

ANNE  MICHAELS [Guest] (44:55)

I said I achieved more. didn’t expect, I didn’t set out to achieve awards. I set out to build the building and create something that’s beautiful and that has longevity. But I think it just, it did more. It gave something to so many women. It’s given something to the street and the area. And it’s, yeah, it’s gone a little bit beyond what I had, beyond what I

 

DI GILLETT {Host] (45:00)

Yep.

 

Yeah.

 

I can see it’s there. I’m going to throw some rapid fire questions at you to finish, if I could. Did you ever think if you just worked hard enough, the industry would come around?

 

ANNE  MICHAELS [Guest] (45:26)

Thank you.

 

I did naively. I did. I thought there would be reward for effort. If you put in, you should receive. But it doesn’t always work that way. Yeah.

 

DI GILLETT {Host] (45:53)

Yeah. Yeah, you need to.

 

I can understand that. So I asked you before and I’m going to ask you again. So what’s the move? Stay and fight or build something new?

 

ANNE  MICHAELS [Guest] (46:07)

I’m going to probably build something new. I think I could step back into building another building. don’t think with the same team or similar team, I think we’ve, as I said earlier, we’ve set precedent. I don’t think I’d have issues. ⁓ I believe the economic landscape isn’t conducive to taking that level of risk again. There is no reward here in Victoria. ⁓

 

the present. they tend to look at the property industry as a revenue source for fiscal mismanagement.

 

DI GILLETT {Host] (46:38)

It can only hope for change.

 

Yeah. There’s been lot of fiscal mismanagement.

 

ANNE  MICHAELS [Guest] (46:51)

So, yeah.

 

So I think build something new. So if I’m building something new, I don’t know what it is. And when I say build, it doesn’t necessarily have to be a building.

 

DI GILLETT {Host] (47:05)

What a pity that She Built can’t get through to She the Premier to understand that she can do something better. But this isn’t a political podcast, maybe it is. there you have it. Well, my last question is, what does power mean to you?

 

ANNE  MICHAELS [Guest] (47:22)

because I can.

 

DI GILLETT {Host] (47:24)

Yeah, there you go. Yeah, and you’ve absolutely, absolutely proved that.

 

ANNE  MICHAELS [Guest] (47:30)

and I think that should be ⁓ because she can. Other women should be able to think of that and say, yeah, I can do it.

 

DI GILLETT {Host] (47:34)

Yeah. ⁓

 

And the reason I built this podcast platform, is to be able to share stories of inspiring women. And it’s not every day that I get to share the story of somebody who’s broken new ground in an area. You’ve already said there’s probably about four commercial female property developers in Australia. It’s not even a handful of names. And you’ve absolutely broken new ground. You’ve set a precedent.

 

multiple times in an industry that has a series of firsts and you’ve got the legacy building that is going to stand for decades as proof of what you’ve achieved. It is absolutely amazing and it’s stories like these that create opportunity and optimism in others to say, you know, they can see it, maybe I can do it too. So thank you.

 

so much for sharing your story. And I’m going to ask you as a listener to share this story with somebody else who you think this will inspire and follow the podcast on any of the podcast platforms. Until next time.