Central Equity to Sell Port Melbourne Development Site

Managing director Eddie Kutner told Capital Gain the developer wants to focus its energy on its other inner-city apartment including a site in Jeffcot Street West Melbourne, and in Southbank, where it is marketing SouthbankOne and Vue Grand high rise towers.

This leaves its proposed 9-level mixed use office and apartment tower at 95 – 101 Bay Street surplus to the developer’s needs.

Currently a collection of disused warehouses, the property is the last remaining industrial site on Bay Street between the beach and Graham Street – now dotted with several high rise towers.

The ground levels of these buildings include retail space, which is extending the popular Bay Street shopping strip south, toward the beach.

Jones Lang LaSalle sales & investments executive Dominic Gibson says he expects the Central Equity site to arouse interest from developers wanting to capitalise on strong demand by owner occupiers, investors and renters.  He is expecting the site to sell for more than $10 million.

Queensland-based developer First State Investments recently launched the bianca apartment project, on the former Teac site across the road from the Central Equity site. Prices in bianca have surpassed $15,000 per square metre, setting a new record for the suburb.

Central Equity is synonymous with high density apartment development in Melbourne and is responsible for building the bulk of Southbank’s apartments in the 1990s. It privatised in 2006 amid shareholder unrest, in part to do with high salaries paid to its directors Eddie Kutner, Dennis Wilson and John Bourke.

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Marc Pallisco

A former property analyst and print journalist, Marc is the publisher of realestatesource.com.au.