Melbourne CBD Office Building Sells
An Indonesia-based buyer paid $45.5 million for the fully-leased CBD office building at 235 Queen Street on a 3.99% yield.
Known as Melbourne Chambers, the 11-storey C-grade building has a number of its leases up for renewal in the short-term. The current rent is over $1.81 million pa. Tenants include education, legal and co-working operators.
The vendors were the Bardas family, founders of the Sportscraft clothing chain, who bought the building in 2015 for $25.5 million.
Also in the CBD, Singaporean investor HThree City Australia bought the 11-storey 446 Collins Street office tower last month for $72.625 million from Vantage Property Investments, on a fully-leased yield of 4.3%.
Zagame Family Sells Another Gaming Venue
The Zagame family has continued its selldown of large-format gaming venues, divesting the Boronia Hotel for $24 million to a private investor from Brisbane.
The venue includes 80 gaming machines and sold on 5% yield.
It follows Zagame Corporation selling the Edwardes Lake Hotel in Reservoir for $28 million last month to ASX-listed Hotel Property Investments, also at 5%.
Both venues are leased to IPR Hotels, which acquired 60-year leaseholds to the venues and 2 other former Zagame hotels in Berwick and Ballarat from the Zagame Corporation for $99 million earlier this year.
New Intermodal Freight Terminal
Salta Properties will begin construction of a $155 million intermodal freight terminal at its Nexus Dandenong South industrial estate before the end of this year, after signing an agreement with the Victorian government.
The fully-automated terminal will have capacity for handling up to 560,000 shipping containers each year. It will connect directly to the Port of Melbourne’s $125 million on-dock rail project via a new track coming off the Cranbourne train line. Trucks will also have dedicated lanes for loading and unloading.
Salta will put $155 million towards construct of the terminal while the Victorian and federal governments will jointly invest $28 million for the 800-metre rail spur track.
Construction will take about 2 years.
The project is part of the broader Victorian Port Rail Shuttle Network, which intends to cut 25% from freight transport costs, reduce congestion at the port, and take 175,000 truck movements off suburban roads each year.
The Victorian and federal governments have identified potential sites at Truganina and at Beveridge for the Melbourne Intermodal Terminal, which would connect to the 1,700km Inland Rail freight network between Melbourne and Brisbane that is due for completion in 2026.
Australia’s 1st Toyota Dealership Sells to Developer
The home of Australia’s 1st Toyota dealership, at the corner of Chapel and Grosvenor streets and Brighton Road, has sold to a Chinese-backed developer for $23.5 million.
More recently used as an Australia Post distribution centre, the 3,469sqm site had been owned by the Thurston family for almost 50 years. The local planning scheme allows for up to 5 or 6 levels.
Australia Post’s lease runs to August 2024.
Meanwhile, the owner of one of Australia’s largest Mazda dealerships has bought the 8,878sqm Ringwood site they operate from, for $15 million.
The Coopersmith Group, which developed the showroom at 391 Maroondah Highway, bought the site in 1981 for $400,000 from the Patterson Cheney Holden Group.
Disclosure: The weekly Fitzroys Property Wrap is for information only on transactions in the Melbourne property market. Fitzroys provides this information as a public service. We are not purporting that all sales and leases within this report were transacted by Fitzroys. Terms/Privacy © Copyright 2021 Fitzroys.