Officer block earns $25m from developer

The rectangle site (outlined) is near the proposed Officer Town Centre.

Parklea director Andrew Facey with Premier Building Group’s Greg Kilner have sold a low-density housing block in Melbourne’s south east Officer.

Plots 1, 4 and 5 Starling Road are trading for $25 million to Sydney based The Bathla Group.

The Officer block sold for $2.53m per (developable) hectare.

Wedged between Berwick Grammar and Heritage College, the 12.1 hectare parcel was marketed to, amongst other groups, residential builders and aged care providers.

About 9.87ha is developable.

Stonebridge Property Group’s Julian White, Dylan Kilner and Chao Zhang said 11 offers were received following an expressions of interest campaign which closed last month.

“The sale represented a record land rate in this precinct…at over $2.5m per ha,” the brokers added.

“The property benefits from access to the future Officer Town Centre and Officer train station, both about one km from the site”, according to the agents.

Parklea is behind one of the area’s biggest housing estates – the 80ha Timbertop community, under construction since 2012 and also with schools, retail and parks.

Officer on the radar

Officer is about 48 kilometres from town – between Berwick and Pakenham.

“We are receiving healthy demand across all of our development site listings at present,” Mr White said (story continues below).

“Developers are most definitely in buying mode, keen to fulfil their pipelines to meet expected buyer demand, which have been exhausted faster than expected,” he added.

“Those properties that have direct access to high quality amenity, predominantly retail and public transport are receiving the greatest demand.

“Given the proposed future activity in Officer, with a Town Centre planned and existing rail infrastructure, we were able to leverage these amenity points effectively to give a lot of confidence in the future of the precinct”.

The Starling Rd tract is near the 31.4ha Bon View apple orchard which recently sold for $60m to a partnership including ex-Bendigo Bank and Coliban Water director, Don Erskine.

In March, Perth’s Satterley paid $11.26m for a 3.6ha Urban Growth 1 zoned Officer block next to its Arcadia estate, which is nearly built out.

This parcel is expected to make way for townhouses.

Eight months ago Henley Properties outlaid c$8m for a 4.1ha property in the suburb, permit-ready for a 51-lot subdivision.

Stockland is behind one of the area’s biggest recent land transactions – also last September spending $180m for 130.7ha next to its Edgebrook estate, at Clyde North, diagonally adjacent to Officer.

Of Starling Rd, Greg Kilner said “we saw an opportunity to capitalise on a strong vendor market and dispose of the property”.

Share or Recommend article

Marc Pallisco

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