Hong Kong’s Mars Family Holdings spends another $70 million in St Kilda Road: reports

Six weeks after Hong Kong investor Mars Family Holdings paid $98 million for an office at 420 St Kilda Road, in Melbourne’s inner-south, it is said to be buying the commercial property across the road.

Iloura Plaza at 424-426 St Kilda Road is understood be trading for about $70 million.

The Australian, with this item, is scooping the story.

Iloura Plaza was marketed as being “one of the last triple fronted landholdings” in the tree-lined row.

Iloura Plaza (highlighted) occupies a triple-fronted block at the south-west corner of Kings Way, near Albert Park Lake.

At the south-west corner of Kings Way – also the T-intersection of St Kilda and Toorak roads – Iloura Plaza occupies a site measuring 4465 square metres.

It was marketed for its potential to make way for a “grand-scale mixed-use project” combining a hotel, office, residential and retail.

The vendor, China-backed Woodlink, was proposing to rebuild the block as a $360 million complex containing apartments and a 176-suite hotel, which would have been managed by Marriott.

Vendor Woodlink was proposing to replace Iloura Plaza with this $360 million residential and hotel complex

Woodlink paid $45 million for Iloura House in 2014.

It was represented by CBRE’s Mark Wizel, Lewis Tong and Josh Rutman.

Last month, it was reported Mars Family Holdings paid Vantage Property Investments and US-based private equity firm KKR $98 million for 420 St Kilda Road, on the north-west corner of Kings Way.

Vantage and KKR only acquired 420 St Kilda Road two years earlier, paying CEL Australia $68 million.

CEL Australia paid $45.3 million for 420 St Kilda Road in 2013.

Upper levels of Iloura Plaza stare down Toorak Road. The office on the right hand side in this image (409 St Kilda Road) is proposed by LU Simon director Peter Devitt to make way for a high-end apartment complex with a $45 million penthouse.

Elsewhere in the precinct, Sydney-based developer and shopping centre owner John Beville sold 509 St Kilda Road to Chinese developer Runjiang Investment Group for $163 million in nine months ago.

Another Sydney investor, Marprop, with Germany’s GLL Real Estate Partners, acquired an asset in the street last December – paying Bayley Stuart nearly $65 million for 541 St Kilda Road.

Last April, Abacus Property and Wing Tai Holdings paid the Victorian Automotive Chamber of Commerce $95.4 million for 464 St Kilda Road.

The Myer family also sold an asset in the street: 312 St Kilda Road traded for $77 million to Singapore’s Tong Eng Group in late 2017.

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Marc Pallisco

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