Withers family sell Mount Waverley office for $8.1 million
EXCLUSIVE
Ten months after offering it, members of Melbourne’s wealthy Withers family – which owns the Australian arm of convenience retail chain 7-Eleven, and Starbucks, have sold a Mount Waverley office.
At 357 Ferntree Gully Road, on the north east corner of Gilby Road, the asset was until recently owner-occupied as headquarters for the family’s various businesses.
It sold with vacant possession – two months after Knight Frank picked up the listing from another agency.
Tim Grant and Tom Ryan said an expressions of interest campaign which closed on August 22 generated 92 enquiries and 15 inspections, before trading to a local investor.
The sale price values each of the 2007 square metres of building area at $4035.
With 63 car parks, the office, on a 3886 sqm site within the Monash Technology Precinct, is passed by an estimated 25,000 cars a day.
Major tenants in the area include Dennis Family Homes, General Mills, Monash University and Olympus.
German hypermarket Kaufland recently set up a short-term office at Dexus’ Axxess Corporate Park at 327 Ferntree Gully Road, across the road.
Charter Keck Cramer’s Tom Wallace and Steve Kingston acted as transaction manager for 357 Ferntree Gully Road on behalf of Withers Family Holdings.
The Mount Waverley sale comes months after 7-Eleven and Starbucks Australia signed a long-term lease for 7400 sqm recently vacated by Solomon Lew’s Just Group at Building 2, 658 Church Street, Richmond.
Russell Withers and his sister, Beverley Barlow, third generation grocers, control the family’s retail businesses.
The pair are said to have a net worth totalling more than $700 million.
In 2010, the siblings acquired 300 petrol outlets from ExxonMobil.
In 2014, Mr Withers and Ms Barlow sold 15 7-Eleven outlets, with leasebacks, for a total of $71.1 million.
Ms Barlow made headlines in 2015 paying c$20 million for a waterfront mansion in Seacombe Grove, Brighton, renovated and extended by former St Kilda Football Club president Rod Butterss, in 2003.
