GIP to hold Pipeworks and put a new future in the pipeline
GIP managing director Adam Kaye said as a result of a recent sales campaign, the property investment and advisory company would select a preferred partner to jointly pursue continued ownership, or redevelopment, of the 7.5-hectare Thomastown site.
Redevelopment plans mooted for Pipeworks over the years have included an industrial park, bulky goods centre, or a mixed-use development capitalising on its position between two freeways.
Pipeworks Fun Market cost GIP and joint-venture partner Babcock & Brown $6.285 million four years ago.
Sources say the site has the potential to sell for more than $10 million in a more stable market.
It was just three months ago GIP divorced itself from the troubled Octaviar property group (formerly MFS), in a move said to have saved the once lucrative property investment and advisory company from collapse.
GIP founder Joseph Gersh offered the then MFS $20 million in cash to regain ownership of GIP, which it sold to MFS more than a year earlier for $24 million in cash and shares, according to reports.
As part of the deal, MFS would be released from future funding obligations on GIP projects.
Mr Gersh has declined to speak publicly of the MFS separation, saying only that GIP planned to rebuild.
One of GIP’s other big projects is the former Vision Australia site in High Street, Prahran, which it is developing into apartments with Melbourne-based property group Pomeroy Pacific.
The joint-venture partnership bought the 5000-square-metre site, which has three street frontages, for $25.125 million in December.