The Albert Park building that housed Mushroom Records and became part of Michael Gudinski’s music empire for more than four decades is being offered for sale.
by Paul Cashmere
The Melbourne headquarters that became synonymous with Michael Gudinski’s Mushroom Group is being offered for sale, bringing a significant piece of Australian music business history onto the property market for the first time in more than 40 years.
9 Dundas Lane in Albert Park has been the home of Mushroom Group for more than four decades and was also the birthplace of Frontier Touring. The 1,089sqm building occupies a 525sqm freehold site with frontages to Dundas Lane, a right of way and a rear lane.
The property is being sold by Public Expressions of Interest, closing at 12.00pm on Thursday, 29 October 2026.
For music followers, the significance of the building goes well beyond its bricks and mortar. Gudinski discovered the industrial red-brick property in 1980 and converted it into offices for Mushroom Records, creating a base from which one of Australia’s most influential independent music companies continued to expand.
The building’s next chapter will be very different. Mushroom Group is relocating after 46 years, leaving behind a property that has accommodated the company’s operations through decades of change in the Australian music industry.
The building’s industrial origins are still evident in its red-brick facades, steel-framed windows, multiple access points and expansive floorplates. According to architect Stephen O’Connor of O’Connor and Houle Architecture Interiors Landscapes, its unusual configuration also offers significant possibilities for whoever takes ownership.
“The industrial red-brick building at 9 Dundas Lane was one such building, discovered by Michael Gudinski in 1980 and converted into offices for his now legendary Mushroom Records,” O’Connor writes in the property’s architectural vision.
He describes the building as an amalgamation of three or four distinct forms, each built close to the street boundary. Together, they create what he compares to a Dutch streetscape, with different gables and parapets forming the property’s distinctive exterior.
The most unusual feature may be above street level. The central three-storey section rises higher than the surrounding Albert Park buildings, giving its top floor views across Melbourne to the north and towards Port Phillip Bay to the south.
O’Connor believes the upper level could potentially be expanded, taking advantage of the property’s three street and laneway frontages for light, ventilation and access.
The possibilities outlined for the property include continued commercial use, medical or hospitality applications, residential conversion and boutique development, subject to the necessary approvals. It could also be transformed into a substantial private residence.
That flexibility is partly a consequence of the building’s unusual history. Unlike a purpose-built corporate headquarters, 9 Dundas Lane was originally an industrial building, designed around space, light and access rather than conventional office accommodation.
Those characteristics allowed Mushroom to build a working environment inside a structure that was already embedded in Albert Park’s residential streetscape.
Mushroom Records itself dates back to 1972, when Gudinski and Ray Evans established the label in Melbourne. Its early catalogue included artists such as Madder Lake, Ayers Rock and MacKenzie Theory before Skyhooks’ Living In The 70’s transformed the company’s fortunes in 1975.
Over the following decades, the Mushroom name became attached to a remarkable range of Australian music, including Split Enz, The Church, Hunters & Collectors, The Saints, Kylie Minogue, Paul Kelly, Jimmy Barnes, Archie Roach, Rose Tattoo and many others.
Gudinski subsequently developed Mushroom into a much broader entertainment operation encompassing touring, booking, publishing and other music businesses. Frontier Touring became one of Australia’s major concert promoters, while Mushroom Group continued to operate independently across the entertainment sector.
Gudinski died in Melbourne in 2021, aged 68. The Mushroom Group he built has continued beyond his death, but 9 Dundas Lane has remained a physical link to the era when the company was being established and expanded from its Melbourne base.
The property sale therefore represents more than the departure of a long-term commercial tenant. It marks the end of an unusually long chapter for a building that has been occupied by one of the most significant Australian music companies of the past half-century.
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