Alter family seeks occupier for riverside Abbotsford office
The Alter family is seeking to fill an imposing Melbourne office it acquired for $41 million in 2018 knowing it would be vacated this year.
On a 5927 square metre site abutting the Yarra River, in inner north east Abbotsford, the complex has been given a new name – Trenerry Workport – and its former address has been simplified to 70 Trenerry Crescent.
Developed in the late 1980s for Country Road, the property is configured with a double storey building containing 5439 sqm of area overlooking a 3500 sqm central courtyard.
However, the landlord is marketing Trenerry Workport renovated and with plans for a glass extension, potentially increasing the lettable area to 6434 sqm.
The asset also includes 195 car parks and access from Yarra Bike Trail.
Colliers International’s James McMahon, Rob Joyes and Chris Meehan are leasing the space in configurations from 300 sqm.
The property’s outgoing sole tenant, John Holland Group, is relocating to a CBD office it has been constructing for Dexus at 180 Flinders Street.
Trenerry Workport not far from where the Alter family’s local property portfolio began
The Alter family’s Pacific Group holds a substantial property portfolio including a share of Coles Group’s headquarters in Tooronga, Melbourne’s former London Stores complex at the south east corner of Bourke Street Mall and Elizabeth Street and the recently closed flagship Harris Scarfe outlet in Adelaide’s Rundle Mall.
The company was established by Maurice Alter, who migrated to Australia from Poland at 24 and worked as an electrical engineer until he could afford to buy two shops and a bank in Kew – the next suburb east of Abbotsford – in the 1950s.
According to last year’s AFR Rich List, the businessman has a net worth of about $2.33 billion.
Now led by his son, Sam, Pacific in 2018 reaped $1 billion selling QIC Global Real Estate half of major shopping centres in Melbourne’s Epping and Werribee.
Abbotsford’s imminent office building boom
Last month Fred IT pre-committed to a quarter of an eight-storey, 9664 sqm office at 20-30 Mollison Street, Abbotsford.
That occupier’s outgoing headquarters, 20-62 Trenerry Crescent – next door to Trenerry Workport – is now earmarked for a nine-storey mixed-use building.
At 12-20 Victoria Crescent, Abbotsford, local developer and investor Charlie Buxton is seeking to build 12,300 sqm of commercial space in two towers of six and nine levels.
United Petroleum co-founder Eddie Hirsch is proposing a commercial complex, too: the 10-floor structure unveiled last year is being marketed as Abbotsford’s “greenest, cleanest” office.
The Zagame family is also looking to fill the c1927 Austal Silk and Cotton Mills warehouse at 112-124 Trenerry Crescent – which it has just renovated into a high-quality workplace.
Abbotsford is about three kilometres from the city.
