Black Caviar owner spends $130m on flagship growth corridor site
EXCLUSIVE
Black Caviar owner and Victoria Racing Club board member Neil Werrett is picking up a significant Clyde North industrial development site.
The 53.58 hectare parcel at 585 Berwick-Cranbourne Road, on the south west corner of Thompsons, is costing the Sydney based businessman’s Galileo Group $130 million.
The result is a boon for the seller, Oreana Property Group, led by brothers Steven and Tony Sass, which more than doubled its 2019 outlay of $60.5m.
The land forms part of the Croskell Precinct Structure Plan, which upon anticipated approval in 2024, will repurpose 305ha of farms between Narre Warren and Berwick-Cranbourne roads to predominantly commercial.
In May, MAB Corporation spent c$60m for a 32.6ha holding in the pocket, for a c$400m business park.
LAWD’s Paul Callanan, Peter Sagar and Darcy Tobin marketed both sites, about 46 kilometres south east of Melbourne’s CBD.
Oreana more than doubles money
With 1.4 kilometres of street frontage, about 41.2ha of the Berwick-Cranbourne Rd site is developable.
Institutions, including super funds, and syndicates looked in, the agents said.
It sold against $120m expectations.
The deal comes 15 months since Galileo, as a minority owner, with Cbus, outlaid $150m for a collection of low-rise North Sydney sites, all up covering 4000 sqm, for a 30 storey apartment complex (story continues below).
Oreana’s development pipeline meanwhile includes a hospitality based mixed use project in South Yarra and bulky goods investment at Armstrong Creek, near Geelong.
Another Clyde North sale
Mr Callanan expects the Clyde North site to accommodate a flagship business park.
“There is currently a flight to quality, and this was simply the best remaining industrial infill site in the most sought-after growth corridor of Melbourne,” he said.
“This property represented a rare opportunity to secure a prime development asset amid strong demand for industrial and commercial land,” the executive added.
“The Croskell PSP has been defined as a state and regionally significant commercial area within the Melbourne industrial Land Use Plan due to the exhaustion of industrial land in the south east and its ease of access to principal freight networks,” according to the agent.
The ex-farm is the latest to trade to a commercial builder.
Elsewhere in the area, Burbank subsidiary National Pacific Properties last December sold the 26.2ha Clyde Town Centre site to Sydney based Bathla Group for $67.65m.
Coincidentally, LAWD was one of the agencies on that transaction too.
In the wider south east, at Dandenong South, ISPT in August outlaid c$300m for a 62.42ha commercial development site.
Subscribe to our newsletter at the bottom of this page.
