Victoria 

Inverloch Residents Say Desal Worker Demand is Pushing Rents up by Stealth

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RESIDENTS in a township near Victoria’s new Desalination Plant say they are being evicted so that landlords can re-let properties at a significantly higher price, to people working on the controversial project.

Bass Coast mayor Peter Paul is said to be investigating the issue whereby agents tell tenants the owner wants to sell the property, only to then re-let the property, at a substantially higher rent.

One resident is being evicted from an Inverlcoh house she has been paying $250 per week for. The home would fetch $500 per week, if it were put on the open market, the South Gippsland Advertiser reports.

 

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Victoria 

Australand Pays $11.9 Million For Nine-Hectare Rowville Development Site

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AUSTRALAND has paid $11.9 million for nine hectares of business zoned land in the south-eastern Melbourne suburb of Rowville.

“If ever there is a sign that the market is looking more positive, its when you start to sell development sites,” Colliers International’s Barry Marks told the AFR, which reported the sale.

Anthony Maugeri, southern region manager for Australand, said the group would consider selling Stud Road land outright. It will also offer land and build-and-leasing packages.

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Victoria 

Two More Major Apartment Towers Set For Melbourne’s Southbank

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MELBOURNE’s fast-gentrifying inner-city suburb of Southbank is about to see another major development.

Salvo Property Group has unveiled plans to develop two apartment towers totalling 850 units.

Construction of the project on City Road will start with pre-sales reach 70 per cent, director Mario Salvo told the AFR.

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Victoria 

CAV Warns Country Victorian Residents Against Cheap Home Repairers Scam

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CONSUMER Affairs Victoria is warning residents in country Victoria against conmen who offer cheap, but dodgy home repairs.

CAV Minister Tony Robinson is reported as saying in the Herald Sun: “Dodgy conmen prey on Victorian consumers, often targeting vulnerable groups like the elderly or families in isolated locations.”

“They travel from place to place door-knocking and pressuring people to hand over ash up front for discount repairs,” he said. “While the offer of cheap work sounds enticing, it usually ends up costing more, because you end up having to pay to fix a poor quality or incomplete job and you lose any deposits or other payments when the trader moves on.”

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Victoria 

Frankston City CounciI Imposes Smoking Ban in Major Retail Strips

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A VICTORIAN council plans to outlaw smoking on its major retail streets, in a move that may be followed by other councils, nationally.

Frankston City Council will impose blanket smoking bans at the Station Street Mall, Shannon Street Mall and the western side of Young Street (Melways reference 100A, D7, E7).

Frankston Mayor Christine Richards said the health benefits were “worth any flak” it would cop, about the decision.

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Victoria 

Henkell Brothers Pays $34 Million For King Street Office, Melbourne

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HENKELL Brothers has paid $34 million for a Melbourne CBD-fringe office building, opposite Flagstaff Gardens.

The 383 King Street building, in West Melbourne, last sold for $41.2 million in 2006, to two Trinity Groups entities, according to the AFR which reported the sale.

The 12,975 square metre office is leased to the National Australia Bank until 2013, but offers redevelopment potential with CBD views that will never be built out.

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Victoria 

Leighton Reaps $20 Million From Sale of Cheltenham Building and Development Site

LEIGHTON Properties has made about $20 million from the sale of a new office building, and adjoining 20,000 square metre development site, on the suburb border of Cheltenham, Sandringham and Highett.

The prominent properties, between 294 – 300 Bay Road, were part of a much larger 6.2 hectare (62,000 square metre) industrial parcel Leighton Properties picked up for $22 million in 2005.

Leighton Properties Senior Development Manager Simon Lowe and Nichols Crowder director and selling agent Matt Nichols confirmed the sale when contacted by Capital Gain, but declined to comment on the details of the buyer or price.

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Victoria 

Mt Elephant, Victoria’s Western District, Sells For About $20 Million

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SWEDISH Count Carl Gustav Wachmeister has reportedly paid $20 million for a major rural property in Victoria’s western district.

Mt Elephant – a 3310 hectare farm with permanent springs and 30 dams – was offloaded by Anthony Baillieu, the second cousin of Victorian Opposition Leader Ted Baillieu.

The state’s previous biggest rural sale was in 2008, when the Glenfine station, near Skipton, sold to United Staets based Westchester Group’s fund International Agricultural Investors, the AFR reports.

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Victoria 

Southisland, Under Southgate Footbridge, Opens

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PLANNING barrister Clem Newton-Brown has spent January working at Melbourne’s newest cafe, midway between the CBD and Southgate, on a podium over the Yarra River.

The Southisland Cafe – located under the Southgate footbridge – has taken over a year to get off the ground, so to speak, given objections, permits – and the engineering feat of hooking up a toilet, in the middle of a busy river, at the centre of a thriving metropolis.

Engineers were further delayed by the fact nobody was able to locate original construction drawings for the bridge.

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St Kilda Post Office
Victoria 

St Kilda’s Former Post Office Sells For $4.75 Million to Asian Apartment Developer

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St Kilda Post OfficeST Kilda’s historic Post Office building, at the corner of St Kilda Road and Inkerman Street, has sold to an Asian developer for $4.75 million.

The 1,236 square metre site at 306 – 310 St Kilda Road, sold with a permit for a five-level, 40-unit serviced apartment building, with a ground floor restaurant to be built into the existing Post Office building.

The sale reflects a price of about $3,843 per square metre of land.

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Giant Worm
Victoria 

Site Opposite Giant Worms Listed for Sale

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A PROMINENT retail outlet with development potential, opposite one of Victoria’s most famous “giant” tourist attractions, has hit the market.Giant Worm

The 1342 square metre Abby’s Bargain Centre furniture outlet, set on 3.5 hectares next to the Giant Worm, on the Bass Highway, is being sold with vacant possession, and is expected to fetch between $1.8 million and $2 million.

LJ Hooker Frankston selling agent Geoff Smith says millions of vehicles pass the site every year. The sale includes a near new Victorian style home.

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Victoria 

Australand Sells Undeveloped Taylors Hill Shopping Centre For $23 Million

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AUSTRALAND will build its first Greenfield retail project, in the outer Melbourne north-western suburb of Taylors Hill.

The developer, which is best known for its residential, industrial and office projects, has sold an unbuilt shopping centre- part of its Taylors Hill housing estate – for $23 million, to a group of Melbourne private investors.

The 5,300 square metre Watervale Shopping Centre sold on an estimated yield of about 8 per cent, according to the AFR, which reported the deal.

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Victoria 

Australia’s Largest Homemaker Centre Set to be Developed in Springvale, Melbourne

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AUSTRALIA’s biggest Homemaker Centre will be developed in the outer south-east suburb of Melbourne, not far from Autralia’s biggest shopping centre, Chadstone.

The 80,000 square metre $286 million facility will include about 20 stores including Melbourne’s second IKEA, and a Harvey Norman store.

The project was “called in” – effectively approved – by the Planning Minister Justin Madden last Friday, along with a 38-level apartment building and hotel in Box Hill, and another apartment tower in Southbank.

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Justin Madden
Victoria 

Landmark Decision to Build 38-Level Apartment Building in Melbourne’s Suburbs

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Justin MaddenBOX Hill will be identifiable from almost all of Melbourne, after the Victorian Planning Minster Justin Madden “called in” a controversial 38-level tower, behind the Box Hill train station.

The tower would be the tallest outside of the CBD and St Kilda Road area, and is one of two projects called in by the Minister this month.

The other sped-through project is a $100 million homemaker centre in Springvale, in Melbourne’s south-east.

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Victoria 

Glyndyn Ringrose Sells Phillip Island Home

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Former world professional surfer Glyndyn Ringrose and wife Kate will bid farewell to Cape Woolamai next month. The championship surfer, who manages Phillip Island’s Island Surfboard store (which once competed with another surf store owned by Skyhooks lead singer and keen surfer Shirley Straun), is moving locally.

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Victoria 

Adelaide Syndicate Pays Becton $27 Million For East Melbourne Office

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A BRANCH of Adelaide-based property syndicate Harmony Group has paid $27 million for an office building at the bottom of an apartment complex, in East Melbourne.

The Wellington Parade South office building failed to sell for $30 million when it first hit the market last year. It came onto the market as Becton also offloaded the Wang House office in the CBD, and another office in St Kilda Road.

Andrew Cain, director of Harmony Group, told the AFR, which reported the deal, the investment group specialises in offering property syndicates which would appeal to high net worth individuals.

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Tim Pallas
Victoria 

Southern Way Wins Controversial $759 Million Peninsula Link Freeway Contract

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VICTORIAN Road minister Tim Pallas has named development consortium Southern Way will build thTim Pallase controversial Peninsula Link freeway.

The $759 million contract – for a freeway some say does not need to be built because there isn’t a population to support it – will stretch 27 kilometres from Carrum Downs, to Mt Martha, and includes 11 road connections, more than 35 bridges, 18,000 square metres of retaining wall and public art.

It is due for completion in early 2013.

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Lang Walker
Victoria 

Billionaire Lang Walker Snares ATO as Docklands Tenant

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Lang WalkerTHE Australian Taxation Office has pre-committed to an unbuilt 38,000 square metre office building in Melbourne’s waterfront Docklands precinct.

Billionaire Sydney-based developer Lang Walker will build the $250 million office, which will be substantially bigger than the ATO’s original 25,000 square metre requirement. The ATO also operates from offices at Casselden Place, expiring 2017, and La Trobe Street.

It’s hoped the ATO building will start a development boom within the Village Docklands precinct, and within the wider Docklands area.

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News Victoria 

Barristers’ Chambers buys Owen Dixon Chambers West

IT may have taken 23 years, but Barristers Chambers Limited has finally got its hands back on a prominent CBD property at the centre of Melbourne’s court precinct.
 
BCL, which is owned by the Victorian Bar Council, has paid $54 million, plus GST, for the Owen Dixon Chambers West office building at 525 Lonsdale Street, which it has occupied since 1986.
 
The purchase marks the end of a tumultuous 30-year association between the site, and BCL, which amongst other things, aims to provide members of the Bar with accommodation in close proximity to the Courts.

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Victoria 

Fund to sell out of $40 million Phillip Island project

AMP Capital Investors is selling out of a $40 million mixed-use village, earmarked for former farmland near Phillip Island’s town centre of Cowes.
 
The Sydney-based fund manager can expect to make around $9 million from the 26 hectare Ventnor Road development site, which will be sold with a permit for a 90-bed aged care facility, 195 independent living units, a retail conference centre and a 128-lot subdivision.
 
An AMP spokeswoman said the property is held by a closed-end fund which has a set period of time in which to invest and then sell its properties.

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Victoria 

VCAT to Decide High Rise Prahran Apartment Tower

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PLANS to redevelop Prahran’s former Royal Victorian Institute for the Blind office into a nine-level apartment building have been rejected by the Stonnington City Council, and will be decided by the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal.
 
The prominent 85 – 97A High Street office will be demolished and replaced with a $25 million, 108-unit complex, under a proposal by the site’s new owner.
 
The project would be the tallest apartment tower in Prahran, outside of public housing complexes at the Bangs and Horace Petty estates, which soar 16 levels.

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Victoria 

Central Equity Pays Crown Casino $13.1 Million For Southbank Site

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MAJOR apartment developer Central Equity has purchased Crown Casino’s outgoing training college in City Road, Southbank.
 
The former ASX-listed developer, now commandeered by directors Eddie Kutner, Dennis Wilson and John Bourke, paid $13.5 million for the site this week.
 
The property includes two historic buildings between 141 and 155 City Road, and sits on 2,527 square metres of land. Sources expect the site to be redeveloped into at least two apartment towers, but this could not be confirmed with a Central Equity representative, who was unavailable for comment. CB Richard Ellis marketed the site.

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Victoria 

Stonnington City Council Approves 227 Toorak Road Redevelopment

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ANZ’s former data centre building in Toorak Road is to be demolished and replaced with a $100 million luxury apartment tower.
 
Stonnington City Council this week approved the demolition of the 227 Toorak Road office, which ANZ sold for $33 million in 2007 to Little Project Developments, the construction company of Toll Holdings chief, Paul Little.
 
The redevelopment will see all Toorak Road car access closed off permanently. The apartment tower that will replace the ANZ office, will be set back 45 metres from the road.

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Victoria 

Pace Developments Pays $5.1 Million For Collection of St Kilda Buildings, Apartments Planned

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BRIGHTON-based builder Pace Developments has paid $5.1 million for a collection of offices and warehouses overlooking Dandenong Road.
 
The 11 – 17 Wellington Street properties cover 1,250 square metres, and offer a second street frontage to Nelson Street.
 
The six buildings on the site will be demolished and replaced with a six-level apartment tower with more than 100 units, offering views over Albert Park Lake toward Port Phillip Bay and the CBD.

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Victoria 

New Australian Record Price of $57.5 Million For Home, Perth

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A WATERFRONT mansion in Perth’s Mosman Park has smashed the record price for a home sale in Australia.

The Saunders Street home offloaded by iron ore heiress Angela Bennett, includes three buildings, a cinema, tennis court and a private jetty. The 7,567 square metre property can be subdivided.

The price breaks the $45 million record set for a home in Sydney, and the $23 million previous Perth record price, set in 2007, for a mansion in Claremont.

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Victoria 

Australian Property Institute Appoints New Executive Officer

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The Australian Property Institute has appointed industry veteran Peter Ralton as executive officer of the Victorian Division of the Australian Property Institute. President Milton Cations said the appointment is the latest in a string of major changes to the staffing structure of the Institute.

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Victoria 

Babcock & Brown Consortium Sells Lisson Grove, Hawthorn Development Site

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A DEVELOPMENT consortium including Babcock & Brown, and prominent local developer Joseph Gersh, is selling off assets as part of a property reweighting.
 
In Hawthorn’s ritzy Lisson Grove, the consortium has reaped $5.25 million from the sale of a 3,697 square metre block of land with a permit for a luxury 21-unit apartment building.
 
New plans for the site, lodged with council in September, are for a 4-level, 81-unit complex.

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Victoria 

Major Project Proposed for The Other Camberwell Junction

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IT’s been a busy year for Camberwell junctions.
 
No sooner had the helium balloons deflated from developer FKP’s launch of Aerial last Thursday, has word of another major development, at “the other” Camberwell junction, come to the fore.
 
The former Juliano’s restaurant, at the frenetic intersection of Toorak and Camberwell roads, is earmarked for a six-level, 76-unit apartment building, after plans for an eight-level, 85-unit complex were rejected by council.

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Victoria 

Le Louvre to Shut Famous Polished Copper French Doors For Good Next Month

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IT will be the end of an era in Collins Street, with exclusive boutique Le Louvre shutting its famous polished copper French doors for good, in January.
 
The 87-year old retailer is bidding au revoir to the “Paris End” of the city named after it – eight months after its second generation owner Georgina Weir sold the 1855 building to Queensland-based fund manager QIC for $13.1 million.
 
Le Louvre will relocate to another historic and heritage protected South Yarra building at 2 Daly Street, owned by the Melbourne and Metropolitan Tramways Board since 1927.

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Victoria 

Financial Ombudsman, AIG, Speculated to be Moving to 717 Bourke Street

VICTORIA’s Financial Ombudsman is relocating to a new $300 million office where it can keep an eye on the country’s biggest financiers.
 
The government arm will follow the ANZ, Bendigo Bank and National Australia Bank from the CBD to Docklands, leasing about 4,000 square metres of space at the unique 717 Bourke Street building, overlooking Etihad Stadium.
 
Sources say the Ombudsman will join insurer Chartis, the new name for AIG, which is believed to have taken about 6,000 square metres at the 37,000 square metre office, due for completion mid next year. Chartis will relocate from a St Kilda Road building it owns, sources say.

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Victoria 

Vision Australia’s Former Prahran Office Expected to Hit the Market, With Apartment Permit

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ALL eyes will turn to Prahran’s former Vision Australia site, which is understood will come back onto the market early next year, with a development permit for a $68 million, 330-unit residential village.
 
Gersh Investment Partners and Pomeroy Pacific agreed to pay Vision Australia $25.1 million for the 201 – 209 High Street office at the peak of the boom in 2007, but this deal has yet to settle.

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Victoria 

MAB Corporation Sells Prominent Tullamarine Site For $2.9 Million

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MAB Corporation, which is expected to unveil itself as the owner of Doncaster’s Eastern Golf Course before Christmas, has sold a prominent 2.1 hectare industrial development site with a 300 metres frontage to the Tullamarine Freeway, near the airport.
 
CVA Property Consultants director Anthony Carbone, who sold the site with ICG Property, confirmed the site sold for $2.9 million.

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Victoria 

Hamton, ISPT Forge With Plans to Develop $200 Million Riverfront Village, Abbotsford

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THE development consortium which bought three low-rise offices on the banks of the Yarra River, is forging ahead with plans to demolish two of the buildings, and replace the space with a $200 million residential village.
 
Developers Hamton and Industry Superannuation Property Trust have started marketing apartments at 677 – 679 Victoria Street, opposite the Victoria Gardens shopping centre in Abbotsford, at the suburb border of Kew and Hawthorn.

The developers are reported to have paid Becton about $30 million for the office complex late last year, outmuscling traditional property investors sniffing the market out at the time for good bargains.

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