FUND manager and developer Zig Inge Group is believed to have paid close to $18 million for a rundown but spectacularly located office investment at 199 Toorak Road in South Yarra.

The blue, glass, four-level building with ground floor shops is at the north-east corner of Claremont Street and will be renovated, and slotted into Zig Inge Group’s Core Plus Portfolio.

Zig Inge, which built its business developing retirement villages, outmuscled several high-rise residential developers for the 199 Toorak Road site, which measures 1689 square metres.

An adjoining site at 2 – 4 Claremont Street, measuring 908 metres was listed for sale with 199 Toorak Road, but after failing to attract interest as a whole – was sold separately after auction for a speculated $6.5 million.

ANOTHER suburban post office is being redeveloped into flats.

This time, in Melbourne’s east, the former Ashburton Post Office at 218 High Street will be replaced with a four-level apartment building.

One bedroom units start at $349,950 – or about the same price as a house on land in the suburb in the late 1990s.

Castran Gilbert selling agents Michael Lang and David Howard say the apartments include reverse cycle heating and cooling, and full security basement car accommodation with direct lift access.