ISPT

News 

Planning Minister Approves $800 Million-Plus Redevelopment of Ex-Age Site, Melbourne

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IT USED to be considered the dankest end of the Melbourne CBD – but now two former industrial sites opposite the Southern Cross train station are to make way for some ten swank skyscrapers accommodating some 5500 apartments.

Yesterday Victorian planning minister Matthew Guy approved an $800 million redevelopment of the former Age newspaper site at 250 Spencer Street.

The proposal – seen in ISPT’s 2012 annual report – seeks to add six skyscrapers and 2994 flats to the block which for years houses The Age newspaper.

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New South Wales 

NSW Transport Department Spents $48.5 Million on Epping Office Asset Which it Will Demolish

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THE New South Wales state transport department has paid $48.5 million for a prominent suburban office park in Sydney, which it will bulldoze, as part of its $8.5 billion North-West Rail Link project.

The office park was offloaded by Abacus Property Group which paid $25 million for the asset in 1997.

A lot of the asset’s value lay in its residential redevelopment potential. Instead the site will become the location for the North West Rail Link’s Epping Services facility. The purchase gives the government four buildings near the Epping railway station and bus interchange in the suburban north-west.

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Kristina Keneally
New South Wales 

NSW Government Abandons Metro in Favour of $50 Billion Transport Blueprint

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Kristina KeneallyTHE New South Wales Government has abandoned plans for its $5.3 billion Metro rail project in favour of a $50.2 billion transport blueprint which will include a $4.5 billion express rail service to Western Sydney, and a $6.7 billion North West rail link from Epping to Rouse Hill.

The government will retain about $120 million worth of Sydney CBD property it has already acquired “so the sites are protected for a future metro.”

This should pacify some vendors who have sold properties, or shaped their leasing decisions, thinking they’d be surrounded by a construction zone.

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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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