SLB snaps up ex-Victoria University campus
SLB Developments has invested again in Melbourne, picking up Victoria University’s recently vacated City King campus – a 12 level office at 225 King Street – for c$40 million.
The deal comes two years since the Singapore group teamed with Baring Private Equity Asia and Marprop to purchase RMIT’s former Building 108 and the ground floor Tivoli Arcade, on the Bourke Street Mall, for c$210m, as a development play.
Its latest asset contains 6286 square metres of lettable area and 12 car parks. The site, between Lonsdale and Little Bourke streets, spreads 707 sqm.
Victoria University last week relocated to a 32 level building developed by ISPT on one of three neighbouring sites acquired from the school in 2018.
Seven months ago, the college sold another recently redundant campus, 300 Flinders Street – which contains 11 storeys of strata office space – for $80.8m to Maprop and Futuro Capital.
SLB bulks up in Melbourne
SLB Developments is a subsidiary of Lian Beng Group, which last August offloaded a St Kilda Road site permit-ready for a 19 level apartment building, for c$25m (story continues below).
Directed in Australia by Matthew Ong, the company was also behind the memorable 2017 sale of 50 Franklin St for $90.15m – or $39m more than it paid 18 strata owners 13 months earlier, before modernising the building and filling it with two Victorian government departments.
The historic Newspaper House at 247-249 Collins St was once under Lian Beng Group’s stable too; purchased for $18m in 2015, it was flipped two years later after a renovation, for $35m.
JLL’s Josh Rutman, Nick Peden, Mark Stafford and MingXuan Li marketed 225 King St, now set to be refurbished and re-let.
Thomson Geer’s Eu Ming Lim acted for SLB Developments.
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