Forza sells ex-CUB car park
EXCLUSIVE
Forza Capital has turned a profit selling an ex-Carlton & United Breweries car park on the banks of the Yarra River, in Abbotsford, after five years and a commercial redevelopment scheme.
The fund manager is banking $14.6 million for the 3880 square metre holding: 38 Grosvenor Street and 33 Flockhart, with a four floor building containing 470 bays.
It paid the drinks giant $12m; offered with a part leaseback but fully occupied, and with a 7.5 year weighted average lease expiry, that deal reflected a 6.6 per cent yield.
When Forza listed it for public sale last April, the income was $964,352.
Paul Jones from a different agency, Jones Real Estate, got the deal over the line though – to a local investor.
Office plan
Forza slotted the car park into a single asset trust: the Forza Grosvenor Street Fund, which has been returning unitholders 7.2pc annual cash distributions.
In October 2020 – as Melbourne was in its second major COVID-related lockdown and suburban offices were seemingly more popular with tenants and investors – the manager sought to add value to the property with a permit for an 11 storey extension (story continues below).
Later downsized to eight floors, both proposals were rejected by the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal given the proximity of the designs to the Yarra River.
That said, the parcel is considered to hold some airspace development upside, according to agents.
In 2018, Lascorp and the Herzog family divested a prominent red brick ex-Honeywell biscuit warehouse converted office across the road (45 and 50 Grosvenor St) to a Chinese investor for $37m following a campaign targeting investors.
EG also bought a riverside Abbotsford property for a fund targeting under-utilised investments, outlaying $27.3m in 2021.
In Victoria St, that asset, on 3459 sqm, zoned Commercial 1, neighbours a 10 level apartment complex developed by Hamton.
More to come.
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