Australian Education Union Spends $16 Million on Neighbouring Abbotsford Office

THE Victorian Branch of the Australian Education Union, presided by Mary Bluett, may need to rely on fee revenue from government educators to pay off a spectacularly located office building it has purchased on the banks of the Yarra River in Abbotsford – next door to its current HQ.

The AEU’s off-market acquisition comes three years after the Association of Independent Schools of Victoria paid about $6 million for a massive art-deco office complex in Rosslyn Street, West Melbourne, and some two years since the National Union of Workers paid almost $7 million for a Bourke Street, Docklands head office.

The AEU is headquartered at a large building at 112 Trenerry Crescent, and rents out surplus office space. That building could be extended, and the site has redevelopment potential, sources say.

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Century Old Abbotsford School Set to Become Apartments

IT WILL be the end of another era in Abbotsford when apartment builders redevelop the property known for more than a century as the St Joseph’s Technical School.

The prominent site at 73 – 103 Nicholson Street, at the intersection of Mollison and Little Charles streets, has sold for more than $9 million to a developer.

Operating between 1893 and 1990 under the auspice of the Christian Brothers, and more recently as a campus for Steiner school Sofia Mundi, the 4800 square metre inner-city site was offloaded by the Roman Catholic Trust Corporation for the Diocese of Melbourne.

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More Commission Flats for Abbotsford

ANOTHER former commercial building in Abbotsford is being converted into a major residential project.

The former Harold Boot Company factory, at the corner of Gipps and Nicholson streets, is being redeveloped by Common Equity Housing Limited, and the Office of Housing, into a $25 million, five-storey, 59-unit complex.

Twenty five apartments – representing just over 40 per cent of the overall project – will be set aside as public housing, part of the Federal Government’s plan to build 80,000 social and affordable dwellings nationally by 2012.

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Abbotsford’s Terminus Hotel Latest in a String of Melbourne Pubs to Sell

ABBOTSFORD’s prominent green Terminus Hotel has sold to an owner occupier for a price speculated to be about $5.5 million.

The pub, often touted as being in Richmond because it sits at the suburb border (Victoria Street) was sold by Jones Lang LaSalle’s Mathew George in an off-market campaign.

The Terminus is the latest in a string of pubs to be put up for sale recently.

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Hamton, ISPT Forge With Plans to Develop $200 Million Riverfront Village, Abbotsford

THE development consortium which bought three low-rise offices on the banks of the Yarra River, is forging ahead with plans to demolish two of the buildings, and replace the space with a $200 million residential village.
 
Developers Hamton and Industry Superannuation Property Trust have started marketing apartments at 677 – 679 Victoria Street, opposite the Victoria Gardens shopping centre in Abbotsford, at the suburb border of Kew and Hawthorn.

The developers are reported to have paid Becton about $30 million for the office complex late last year, outmuscling traditional property investors sniffing the market out at the time for good bargains.

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Safeway to Open 4,000 Square Metre Supermarket in Hive, Victoria Street Abbotsford

UNINVITING inner-city retail strip Victoria Street, at the suburb border of Abbotsford and the precinct known as North Richmond has attracted a second major retail tenant.
 
Woolworths this week confirmed a 20-year, 4,000 square metre retail lease at Hive, a $50 million shopping centre and residential project, being developed on a 5,000 square metre site on the north-west corner of Nicholson Street.
 
Woolworths will join rival Aldi, a large pharmacy, and 22 specialty retailers at Hive, which is due to open in February. 

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Charter Hall Sells Interest in Abbotsford Portfolio For $18.3 Million

CHARTER HALL has sold its half share interest in a portfolio of ten inner-city investment properties, with redevelopment potential.
 
Charter Hall will sell its share in the “Fosters Abbotsford” portfolio to its consortium partner for the investment, the Wyllie Group. The $18.3 million sale price reflects a yield of about 8.15 per cent for Wyllie, and a 9 per cent discount to the Charter Hall December 2008 independent book value.

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Foster’s Sells Another Site Near Abbotsford Brewery, Development Wave Underway

The Foster’s Group has made $8.3 million from the sale of another industrial property in the inner north-eastern suburb of Abbotsford. The property was sold separately from a portfolio of eleven other Abbotsford properties offloaded by the brewer last year to Charter Hall, for around $41 million.

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