Zagame family bank premium for riverfront office
Harry the Hirer owner Rick Jamieson has purchased a warehouse converted office on the banks the Yarra River, in Abbotsford, to occupy.
The five level red brick Austral Silk and Cotton Mills factory at 112 Trenerry Crescent is speculated to be costing just over $30 million – more than 20 per cent over guide when it was listed in March.
The Zagame family was the seller; it paid the Australian Education Union’s Victorian branch $21m in 2019 then upgraded the office space to A-grade and added end of trip facilities and an entrance foyer.
It also refurbished the bathrooms before launching a leasing campaign that year when the 4252 square metre building with 122 car parks was marketed as Abbotsford’s best office.
The sale campaign, which branded the property Yarra House, was managed by JLL’s Josh Rutman and Tim Carr with Vinci Carbone’s Frank Vinci and Joseph Carbone.
As well as owner occupiers, the agents targeted investors, securing two heads of agreements for potential whole building tenants.
Abbotsford hots up
On 4389 square metres overlooking Dights Falls, 112 Trenerry Cr is diagonally adjacent to Victoria Park which, at the time the Austral Silk and Cotton Mills was developed in 1927, was earmarked to become an ornamental square.
Morry Schwartz was responsible for the warehouse conversion in the late 1980s (story continues below).
The AEU held the asset since 1998 to occupy and part rent out; it relocated functions undertaken there to the neighbouring office (126 Trenerry Cr) which cost it $15.6m in 2011.
The sale to Mr Jamieson’s Astrodome Hire comes five years since Thorne Harbour Health acquired another warehouse converted office in the suburb – an ex-shoe factory at 200 Hoddle Street – for c$11m from United Petroleum owners Eddie Hirsch and Avi Silver, to occupy.
Near there, at 222 Hoddle St, developer Hirsch & Fagen, which is led by Eddie’s son, Ben, recently started constructing a 10 level, 7450 sqm commercial building – a third of which will be tenanted to co-work outfit The Hive.
Banco Group, meanwhile, is developing a strata office complex at 19 Thompson St, near the Carlton & United Breweries plant.
Closer to the river, Forza Capital recently won permission to develop a 12 story commercial building at 38 Grosvenor St – a site it listed for sale last month.
Harry the Hirer will move from a nearby Richmond site which has in recent years been the subject of a residential based mixed-use redevelopment.
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