News Limited to Sell Blackburn's Former Leader Newspaper Offices, Melbourne

NEWS LIMITED can expect to make about $12 million from the sale of an outgoing eastern suburbs office site, used for years by its Leader Newspaper staff.

The prominent 8,767 square metre site, on the corner of Whitehorse Road and the busy Railway Parade, in Blackburn, has a total road frontage of 162 metres.

One sixty Whitehorse Road could make way for several types of projects including medium and high density apartments, or offices, with ground floor retail.

Knight Frank directors Ken Smirk and Michael Hede are marketing the development site.

Leader staff moved to a new Chapel Street office abutting its outgoing 160 Whitehorse Road site about three years ago.

The Salvation Army is the most recent tenant to the Blackburn area, leasing two adjoining offices totalling 7,128 square metres in 2007, then selling its outgoing Hamilton Street, Mont Albert headquarters to a developer.

Blackburn has so far avoided high-density redevelopment, however skyscraper proposals have made their way to the eastern suburbs around it. The biggest current proposal is a 38-level tower in the adjoining suburb of Box Hill, while a few years ago, a 17-level building was proposed for a site abutting the Mitcham train station.

A few years ago it was speculated News Limited would relocate its Herald Sun staff to a new building in the inner-city, but instead it stayed at its prominent City Road Southbank offices.

Rival Fairfax relocated its Age and Australian Financial Review staff recently to Media House in Docklands, after selling its outgoing Spencer Street building for $66.1 million in early 2007.