Teachers Mutual Bank buys adjoining shops in Melbourne’s Docklands
Teachers Mutual Bank – one of Australia’s largest mutual banks – has paid $1.28 million for two adjoining ground floor retail spaces in Melbourne’s Docklands which it will occupy.
The properties – shops 1 and 2 of the V1 Tower at 8-18 McCrae Street – sold at a rate valuing the building area at $8950 per square metre.
The assets form part of a portfolio of 14 shops listed for sale earlier this year at the base of the building, which is just off Flinders Street, walking distance to the Southern Cross train station.
The investments – some vacant and some tenanted, and ranging in size from between 40 square metres to 126 sqm – were offered as a whole or individually by Allard & Shelton’s Joseph Walton and Martin Huang with TT Global’s Tony Tai and Jennifer Tai.
Twelve assets remain on the market.
Established in 1966, and headquartered in Sydney’s Homebush, Teachers Mutual Bank comprises three branches: the original Teachers Mutual Bank, UniBank and Firefighters Mutual Bank. It has more than 193,000 members and close to $7 billion worth of assets under management. It won the Etisphere Institute’s World’s Most Ethical Companies’ Award in 2014, 2015 and 2016.
The Docklands shops will accommodate the bank’s first Victorian branch.
In the immediate vicinity of the V1 building, developer Riverlee in August received ministerial approval to develop a $450 million complex with luxury apartments, a hotel, shops and 1000-seat function centre.
Construction of this complex – Seafarers Place – at 731-739 Flinders Street, Docklands, is set to begin next year and will include a 17-level structure. It will incorporate a historic goods shed and the Mission to Seafarers building, restore a wharf and also add a 3500 sqm park.
A little further west along Flinders Street, an $800 million complex, Flinders Bank, is set to start construction. In August, the developer of this site, Century Group Australia, secured posh hotel St Regis as an occupant. The Melbourne site will accommodate St Regis’ first hotel in Australia.
