Commercial and residential property news
THE largest residential development to be developed in Darwin since Cyclone Tracy, in the 1974.
The 1100 lot Breezes Muirhead project is being undertaken by Investa Property Group with Defence Housing Australia.
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QUEENSLAND Investment Corporation will build a $350 million mixed-use project beside its Canberra Centre. The proposal will replace a car
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ADELAIDE’s IKEA store is for sale, with a price tag of some $50 million.
The store at 397 Sir Donald Bradman Drive at the Adelaide Airport is being offloaded by direct property fund LEX Retail Property Trust. Unit holders agreed to sell the asset at a meeting last October.
The asset includes 24,500 square metres of area over two levels. The complex was built in 2006 and also includes a cafeteria, office, warehouse, loading dock and car park.
Colliers International’s director of investment services Alistair Mackie is marketing the property, which is on a prime corner adjacent to Adelaide’s principal entry – a developing commercial, retail and industrial hub.
DEVELOPER Brookfield will push ahead with a second office tower on the site of its City Square project, in Perth.
Brookfield’s proposal is for a 16-level, 30,000 square metre tower which will stand alongside a 45-level tower under construction, and leased to BHP Billiton (artist impression of this tower, right).
Perth’s CBD office vacancy rate is a low 6.6 per cent.
Brookfield Office Properties Australia chief executive Brian Kingston said construction could start by October.
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A 12.1 hectare parcel of land near Perth Airport sold to a private owner for $20 million.
The leasehold land, which has 90 years left to run on a lease, is owned by the Westralia Airport Corporation – the private company that operates Perth’s international and domestic airports.
A private owner reported to be Michael Hodgson has purchased the site, but this could not be confirmed by the AFR which reported the deal. Mr Hodgson is the director of several property companies. He also owns Perth’s Botanica Bar, in Innaloo.
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MINING giant BHP Billiton looks unlikely to relocate its headquarters to Perth any time soon, according to news reports.
In 2008 Perth mayor Lisa Scaffidi labelled a new building BHP was occupying at City Square as “BHP’s new national headquarters” raising speculation the giant will leave its long-time home in Melbourne.
The mayor told a council meeting BHP’s Melbourne operations would be “significantly downgraded” in what was “a major boon” for Perth.
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LAND sales have plummeted over 40 per cent, nationally, according to new research issued by the Housing Industry Association.
The group expects the residential construction sector to “remain in the doldrums” until at least December. It describes 2011 as the worst stretch for land sales in about a decade.
A joint report by RP Data and HIA, and reported in the AFR, found the number of residential land sales had dropped for the sixth consecutive quarter in March 2011.
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A DEVELOPMENT site overlooking the West Australian government’s Northbridge Link project in Perth is to be sold by the heirs to a mining fortune.
Angela Bennett and Michael Wright, the children of the late Peter Wright who discovered many of Western Australia’s iron ore deposits with business partner Lang Hancock, are selling the 1383 square metre site, currently leased to Wilson Parking.
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NEW figures released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics show 60,000 fewer first home buyers entered the mortgage market for the year to May.
This reflects a drop of 5000 loans a month, and comes despite the low interest rate environment.
The ABS says rising costs of living, and interest rates, are factors negatively affecting sentiment in the market.
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HARDWARE giant Bunnings has paid $20.6 million for two hectares of land in the Brisbane suburb of Newstead. The Wesfarmers
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AFTER what has been a largely bleak economic backdrop, the country’s most affordable suburbs are performing better than its ritziest.
According to research group RP Data-Rismark, exclusive suburbs including Mosman Park in Perth and Hunters Hill in Sydney (pictured, right) have reported drastic median price drops of more than 30 per cent since “the peak”, which it deems to be August 2008 (about six months after when many agents say the downturn started in the large Sydney and Melbourne markets).
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FINASUCRE, from Belgium, is looking to expand its Queensland land bank.
The company has been operating in Queensland for 10 years and has amassed 11,000 hectares of land.
“There are properties of around 200 hectares that we’d like to buy in the next few months,” Finasucre Investments Australia managing director Jerome Lippens told the AFR. It’s looking around the Bundaberg area.
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TONY Abbott is leading an investigation into foreign ownership of Australian property particularly farms), after a wave of complaints from agents and farmers that the current rules for offshore investors is resulting in much of the country being sold unbeknownst to the Foreign Investment Review Board.
The federal coalition announced the decision on Thursday (June 20) after calls from the Liberals, Nationals and the Greens for new rules to curb farm purchasers by offshore investors.
The Australian newspaper has recently reported a swag of foreign investors quietly snapping up major Australian properties. Buyers include China’s largest coal producer Shenhua and the Qatar government.
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AGRICULTURAL Land Trust has sold an investment property in north Queensland for $11 million. The trust told the AFR, which
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NATURAL disasters in key markets, a strong $A encouraging Australians to travel overseas, and prospective visitors seeking cheaper destinations, have contributed to a slowdown in the country’s tourist accommodation sector.
According to new research issued by the Australian Bureau of Statistics, occupancy in the hotel, motel and serviced apartment sector has dropped in many states, with the lowest rate (51.8 per cent) reported in the Northern Territory.
Tasmania performed best with an occupancy rate of 72.5 per cent in the March quarter. It was followed by the ACT (70.4 per cent) and NSW (67.8 per cent).
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Formula One racing driver Mark Webber is reportedly the buyer of a Noosa mansion offloaded by former competitive tennis player,
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REAL Estate website www.realestate.com.au is being investigated by the Australian Competition and Consumer Comission for its advertising pricing.
The aggressive pricing strategy by the industry leading website has generated complaints by advertisers, which are mostly agents.
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LEIGHTON Properties with Ipswich City Properties have lodged plans to build an office building within the $1 billion Ipswich City Heart development (proposal image, right).
It is proposing a nine-level tower with about 18,000 square metres of A-grade space. According to the AFR the state government is finalising a 15,000 square metre lease within the building, expected to house 1200 state public servants.
Ipswich lord mayor Paul Pisale said the proposal proves Ipswich is becoming a CBD in its own right.
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STOCKLAND has paid $22 million for three retirement villages.
The complexes were offloaded by Retirement Villages Group (RVG)), a struggling unlisted retirement fund run by the FKP Property Group and Macquarie Bank.
The portfolio acquisition adds 376 to the number of independent units offered by Stockland. Combined with serviced apartments, it now manages a total of 7403 dwellings.
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Capital Corporation has started construction of a seven level, 11,000 square metre office at Sydney’s Norwest Business Park.
The development will also include 106 serviced apartments, to be managed by Toga Hospitality as the Media Apartments Norwest.
According to the AFR, which reported the new development, the new office is the first redevelopment in 20 years at Norwest, in Sydney’s north-west suburb of Baulkhum Hills.
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CONSTRUCTION of a major new 561-unit apartment complex in Sydney’s Macquarie Park should start by the end of this year.
Global property group LaSalle Investment Management has teamed with Sydney’s Toga Group to develop the regional centre in Sydney’s north.
All planning approvals for the first stage of the project are in place, according to the AFR which reported the new development arrangement.
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PARMALAT Food, a dairy group whose brands include Pauls Milk, has signed a 10-year lease for 1281 square metres of space at Frenchs Forest in Sydney’s north.
The group is reportedly paying rent of almost $180 per annum per square metre to occupy the warehouse at unit 1, 4 – 6 Aquatic Drive.
The deal, co-ordinated by Jones Lang LaSalle’s Ryan Carey on behalf of Nelia, will see fixed rental reviews of 4 per cent.
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LISTED institution Australand Property Group with partner LaSalle Investment Management, have paid about $35 million for a 5.5 hectare development site in Sydney’s south.
The Clemton Park site (aerial of the suburb, right) sold with a permit. It’s expected to deliver about 700 dwellings over a five to six year period.
Construction company Parkview sold the site, some 15 kilometres south-west from the Sydney CBD and near Earlwood, Kingsgrove and Campsie and not far from the city’s international airport.
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AN OWNER occupier has paid the Canterbury Marrickville Olympic Soccer Club an as yet undisclosed amount for a North Parramatta
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THE INDEPENDENT Commission Against Corruption was told a former NSW Labor government executive rushed to approve the $12.2 million purchase of waterfront land to avoid risk of a deal falling through.
Under caretaker conventions that were in place at the time, the government was not meant to be executing contracts. The investigation – for the Currawong site at Pittwater – is for a transaction recorded on March 15 from developer Eco Villages.
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ANOTHER prominent development site has been listed for sale in Melbourne’s east.
This time, at the south-west corner of Jells and Ferntree Gully roads, in Wheelers Hill (aerial of the site, right), Ammache Architects is selling an 8106 square metre block with plans and permits for a four-level, 131-unit apartment complex.
Ammache paid $4.3 million for the Wheeleres Hill site in August 2009, but is said to be seeking about $10 million for the block now.
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COMMUTERS stuck at the congested intersection best dubbed a traffic sewer will be able to watch a $25 million redevelopment of a prominent East Melbourne church site.
The Catholic Leadership Centre will be developed within buildings, and on surplus land surrounding the prominent Celtic Church on the south-west corner of Hoddle and Victoria streets – about three blocks away from the Fitzroy Gardens, and five blocks from the MCG.
The centre will include a new short term accommodation complex for 45 people, a dining room for 400, and a basement car park with 59 bays. Existing heritage buildings will be refurbished, while a glazed roof walkway will be developed through the spine of the complex.
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MELBOURNE-born retail giant JB Hi Fi is staring down progress, in Keilor East.
This month, the electrical and media retail chain, which is now ASX-listed, vacated the Centreway store (pictured, right) which the company’s founder, John Barbuto, opened as the first JB Hi Fi in 1974.
Barbuto sold his business in 1983 to a consortium, which by the end of the century had opened nine more JB Hi Fi outlets across Melbourne.
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LIFE is about to get a little less private in ritzy Monomeath Avenue – the leafy eastern suburb boulevard often touted as Melbourne’s best street.
Despite being rejected by the City of Boorondara council, the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal has approved a $100 million-plus mixed use village only a block away, which will add four new apartment towers to the area – the tallest of which will rise seven levels.
The proposed new Balwyn development affects a large chunk of land on Jersey Street, which Monomeath Avenue residents use as the most straightforward thoroughfare to Whitehorse Road.
Read moreAUSTRALIAN Unity is offloading one of its most prized located medical centres in Prahran, just 200 metres from retail mecca Chapel Street.
The Victoria House Medical Centre and Victoria Clinic complexes, between 314 – 324 Malvern Road, are spread across 5939 square metres of land, most of which is zoned Residential 1.
The asset will be sold with leases in place to six tenants. Leading private healthcare group Healthscope is committed to the site until 2018.
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SYDNEY-based developer Mirvac is building a giant freeway wall which will block Melburnian’s travelling on the Monash Freeway from seeing one of the south-eastern suburb’s most familiar eyesores.
As part of its Waverley Park stadium townhouse redevelopment, which is nearing completion, Mirvac is required to build a freeway wall to mitigate traffic nose for new residents.
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LIBERAL Party powerbroker Michael Kroger (pictured, right) has finally sold the last piece of the South Yarra estate that was for years the marital home he shared with Ann Peacock.
The sale of the 1850s coach house, in Caroline Street (image, far right), ends a lengthy sales campaign which started in early 2009, and shortly after the couple announced they would separate.
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It has hosted many a celebration – but now the Banksia Court Reception Centre (pictured, right) in Eaglemont will be
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THE new owners of a prominent car yard near the busy Kew Junction (pictured, right) have wasted no time speeding through a new high-density proposal.
After selling to developers in late 2009, the 118 – 120 High Street site, which has been for years occupied by Q-Cars, will make way for a 12-level, 46 unit apartment tower with ground floor shops and 36 car park bays.
The Rothelowman designed tower – Clara Q – will be the Kew Junction’s tallest building, and will make the suburb easier to identify from other elevated parts of Melbourne with an eastern suburb outlook.
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PERTH-based developer Peet & Co has apparently decided against developing a 28 hectare housing estate in Melbourne’s outer south-east, and is now selling the site.
Sources expect the block could fetch close to $30 million, given it is for sale with a 291-lot subdivision, and effectively ready to build upon.
At 55 Abrehart Road, about 55 kilometres south-east of town, the estate (pictured, right) is near commercial hubs in Cranboune and Dandenong and is not far from the Pakenham Golf Course.
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RECEIVERS KordaMentha have recovered just over $8 million from the sale of a multi-level car park near Melbourne Airport.
The four-level commercial complex at 5 South Centre Road (pictured, right) and near the junction of Keilor Park Drive and Sharps Road, sits on a 5217 square metre block and includes about 650 car spaces within 20,000 square metres of enclosed area.
Based on the sale price, each car park bays sold for about $12,300.
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THE Royal Automobile Club of Victoria is some $2 million richer, after selling a 9711 square metre development site in Frankston South (pictured, right).
The undeveloped block at 6 Robinsons Road sold to an investor, and is expected to make way for a residential redevelopment in the medium to long term.
The asset derives annual rent of $110,000 from leases to five telecommunication companies. It’s next door to the Village Baxter retirement village and a caravan park and is close to what will be an onramp to the $759 million Peninsula Link freeway, which is under construction.
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SOUTH Yarra based developer R.Corporation has acquired another prime-located residential development sites that its rivals might have avoided.
This time, at 29 Hampstead Road in Maidstone – overlooking the Maribyrnong Detention Centre – the builder has paid government monopoly Australia Post almost $11.5 million for a two hectare property until recently used as a sorting and distribution centre.
R.Corporation – which once employed bikini model Jodhi Meares to market a high end apartment project it was building on the former “Prahran Destructor” tip and incinerator site in South Yarra – is expected to build a $100 million village at its new Maidstone site which has four street frontages.
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A NEW Melbourne suburb, 19 kilometres south-west of town, has been unveiled.
Truganina South will be developed on a 250 hectare block of land near Hoppers Crossing and in the council area of Wyndham which was recently identified as the country’s fastest growing.
Planning minister Matthew Guy (pictured, right) launched the suburb bound by Leakes, Palmers and Sayers roads, and, traveling west, farmland on the way to Derrimut Road.
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AN OPPORTUNITY has arisen for prime minister Julia Gillard to double the size of her humble Altona estate – or at least get an idea of how prices in the area are faring.
A home in Delmont Avenue, and adjacent to Ms Gillard’s back fence, has been listed for sale asking between $550,000 and $600,000.
The South Australia raised Gillard paid $140,000 for her Altona home (pictured, right) in 1998 – the year she was elected to represent residents in the safe ALP seat of Lalor where Altona sits.
Ms Gillard’s property portfolio also includes a flat in the Canberra suburb of Kingston, which was her ACT base before moving to The Lodge last September.
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CHARTER Hall Office REIT has signed the Australian Tax Office to renew its lease at a prominent Moonee Ponds office tower.
The ATO has occupied the entire 22,000 square metre, seven level building (pictured, right) since it was developed in 1991. The office is near the Puckle Street retail strip, identified by previous governments as a prime activity centre in the north-west.
ATO’s lease was due to expire in 2013. It has now extended that until February 2020.
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Advanced Paediatric Life Support will quit Melbourne’s inner-city of Collingwood (pictured, right), for a sophisticated new city head office. APLS
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Footballer turned commentator Dermott Brereton has sold a near-new duplex in Brighton’s William Street. The double-storey dwelling with three bedrooms
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THE agency selling the Toorak mansion expected to smash Victoria’s residential price record is still confident of a sale despite the bleak global economic backdrop.
The 3 Towers Road mansion of London-based mining speculator Socrates Vasiliades was listed for sale in May with price expectations of about $30 million.
An Expression of Interest campaign managed by Kay & Burton’s Ross Savas closed a month ago but the house still appears on industry websites as a current campaign.
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DOCKLANDS newest street – overlooking the water – and developed only with multimillion dollar townhouses – was launched earlier this month.
MAB Corporation sold all 18 low-rise homes marketed as Marina Residences prior to completion and for prices of up to $4.65 million.
The homes, each with water and city views, were developed over a reconstructed wharf in the developer’s NewQuay precinct. Each includes a plunge pool, four car garage, home theatre, home office and outdoor terrace.
LOCAL developer Salta is pushing ahead with plans to build apartments on undeveloped pieces of land immediately surrounding the Victoria Gardens shopping centre, on the Richmond riverfront.
It’s applied to the Yarra City Council to build 405 flats within new complexes between 25 – 35 River Boulevard and at 15 Christine Crescent. The proposed developments would add 480 permanent car spaces and 30 visitor spots to the area, which is not serviced by a train.
Salta acquired the former Melbourne Fire Brigade land where Victoria Gardens was built in stages. With its last major purchase in 2004, it seized control of every corner at the busy intersection of Burnley, Walmer and Victoria streets.
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HAWTHORN Football Club chief executive Stuart Fox, and wife Sybella, are selling the Wirraminna farm they acquired in 2002 in Gherang, via Moriac – some 10 minutes north east of Anglesea, and 15 minutes east of Torquay.
Translated as “peaceful beside the water”, Wirraminna spreads over two hectares and includes three rainwater tanks, two paddocks and a dam which could accommodate horses or cattle.
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THE private owners of homes in Pin Oak Court, Vermont South (which is beamed across the world as Ramsay Street, Erinsborough in TV show Neighbours and pictured, right) must be pleased with impressive recent sale results in the area.
Vermont South, some 20 kilometres east of the CBD, was part-chosen for its proximity to Forest Hill studios used by network producers when Neighbours was first mooted in the mid 1980s.
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EXHIBITIONIST sunbakers and adventurist gays visiting Mount Eliza’s Sunnyside beaches might have to contend with the sight and sound of construction workers for a few years longer.
Millionaire horse trainer Jonathan Munz has successfully lobbied the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal for a permit to build a luxury home and tennis court on a waterfront piece of his landmark Pinecliff horse training complex – near another home that was demolished in 2006.
Pinecliff, at 55-75 Sunnyside Road is on Green Wedge Zone 3 land near the YMCA’s Manyung Recreation Camp, the Morning Star Winery and Mornington Golf Club (an image of the Mount Martha coast, above).
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DEVELOPERS might not have to wait much longer to get their hands on one what has for years been one of Melbourne’s most anticipated building blocks.
Sources are confident hospital Peter MacCallum Cancer Institute is one of the sickbays expected to “sell surplus property” ahead of a move to the new $1 billion Victorian Comprehensive Cancer Clinic, which is under construction at the top of the Haymarket roundabout in Carlton.
The former Royal Dental Hospital, which stood on a portion of what will be the new Victorian CCC, was demolished in August last year. The new centre is scheduled to open in 2015.
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RETAIL giant Westfield has successfully lobbied against plans by Geelong-based builder and investor Costa Group to rezone a prominent collection of Moolap properties, including what was once a major indoor tennis centre.
Westfield, along with shopping centres Newcomb Central, Bellarine Village and local businesses argued to the Greater Geelong City Council that a rezoning request pitched by Costa – which could have allowed it to build a big shopping centre – would negatively affect designated Activity Centres allocated around Geelong’s suburbs.
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IT’S been a major department store, a flagship city-cinema complex and a problem development site.
And now – 206 Bourke Street is set to be Melbourne’s next nine-figure offering.
Private developer Les Smith with joint venture partner Macquarie Bank are selling the major 3140 square metre city block known between 1985 and 2005 as the Village City Centre, and occupied by the cinema as offices until mid-2008.
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GOODMAN Group has signed three major industrial leases totaling 84,000 square metres.
Transport company Wettenhalls has signed a five year lease for a 32,600 square metre facility at Laverton North, in Melbourne’s west. Wettenhalls is paying $60 per square metre to occupy the site within Goodman’s Wyndham Distribution Centre.
The space Wettenhall is moving into was previously occupied by Kmart, which is moving to a 76,700 square metre facility at Goodman’s Banfield Distribution Centre in Truganina, also in Melbourne’s west and not far from Laverton North.
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BRIGHTON-based builder Pace Developments has paid $7.5 million for a residential development site at the manic St Kilda Junction.
It’s understood Pace will redevelop the 2 – 8 St Kilda Road site, in St Kilda, with a high density, high-rise apartment project.
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