Weekly Wrap

Fitzroys Weekly Wrap - 5th November 2021

Posted on 05th November 2021

111-113 Mentone Parade, Mentone
A local investor bought the 505sqm site for $2.385 million. It has 2 shops totalling 160sqm and was sold on a 1.9% yield on a fully leased basis.

518 Church Street, Richmond
The 381sqm showroom on a 250sqm corner site sold for $4.51 million, at a 3.3% yield. It is leased to French furniture and homewares retailer French & English.

264-266 Toorak Road, South Yarra
The 208sqm corner building sold for $3.295 million at a 2.8% yield, with a new 3-year lease to Japanese restaurant Oushou returning $97,000pa plus outgoings and GST.

876 Edgars Road, Epping
The 275sqm retail and office building within the Aurora Town Centre sold for $2.1 million.

517 Chapel Street, South Yarra
Eternal Bridal leased the 107sqm space on a 3 3-year term at $500/sqm net.

51-55 Johnston Street, Fitzroy
An investor bought the 3-level, 1,292sqm building on a 453sqm site for around $6.35 million. The buyer will part-occupy the property in the medium-term. There is currently a tenant with 1 year left to run on its lease and a 5-year option.

2, 128-130 High Street Road, Ashwood
A private investor bought the self-contained 110sqm 2-level office for $525,000.

541 St Kilda Road, Melbourne
Alfred Health has leased the entire 7-level building, formerly occupied by online employment firm Seek, at around $485/sqm net on a 8-year deal. Owned by Sydney-based funds manager Marprop, the building backs onto the Alfred hospital precinct.

31 Jarrah Drive, Braeside
An owner-occupier bought the vacant 431sqm office and warehouse on a 1,001sqm site for $1.62 million at auction.

525 Kooyong Road, Gardenvale
The vacant garage and showroom building with a mezzanine car lift sold for $2.5 million.

1-3 Prowse Street, Brunswick
Zoned Industrial 1, the vacant 334sqm office, warehouse and apartment building on a 343sqm site sold for $1.38 million.

3/83-85 Rebecca Drive, Ravenhall
The vacant 140sqm office and warehouse unit with 3 parking spaces sold for $420,000.

A Slice of Brunswick and Victorian History On Offer
One of Brunswick’s most historic and distinctive buildings, the 1930s Spanish Mission-style building home to the original Brunswick Market, is being offered for sale.

Fitzroys’ Chris Kombi and Ervin Niyaz are marketing 1 Tripovich Street via Expressions of Interest closing Wednesday, 24 November at 3pm.

The rendered brick building is the only Spanish Mission-style market building ever constructed in Victoria, and retains a rare timber Belfast truss roof structure, in contrast to the Victorian-style shops and homes of Sydney Road. It comprised 71 shops and stalls in its market days during the Great Depression, and in more recent years had been used as a book store and dance studio.

It has just been beautifully renovated and currently trades as T.O.M.S. Place, a multi- tenanted flexible office space with 15 internal lockable offices on individual agreements, while the 910sqm building also includes 4 separate double-storey studio apartments, ranging from 25sqm to 29sqm, fronting Tripovich Street.

Currently, the property returns a combined $301,000pa net, with projected rental of $380,000pa net.

The building is on a 710sqm site with a commanding frontage of almost 23m to Tripovich Street and rear access from Merrifield Street, in the epicentre of Brunswick, and literally just metres from the suburb’s famous eateries, bars and Sydney Road shops, as well as Brunswick train station, the Route 19 tram, and education and recreation facilities.

“This is a genuine slice of local history,” Kombi said.

“This is an incredibly rare opportunity to acquire a landmark character building of this size and nature, positioned at the core of one of Melbourne’s most coveted and popular suburbs.”

He said buyers would note the property’s strong passing income and flexible lease profile, while presenting low maintenance investment given its 2020 refurbishment.

“During COVID there has been a surge in demand for small, affordable office spaces in highly-accessible locations with quality hospitality offerings, with many people preferring to work closer to home while flexible working arrangements are in vogue.”

Niyaz said the property is perfectly positioned within the Anstey precinct, the most densely populated section of Brunswick, and the property is set to benefit from further planned residential development nearby.

“That demand for office spaces from local residents at the property’s doorstep will only continue to intensify,” Niyaz said, adding that many of the property’s current occupiers are local residents.

Just a few metres away on adjacent Ballarat Street, Assemble will soon begin building a rent-with-the-option-to-buy residential development, and US group Hines has just bought a 4,247sqm site for a 250-apartment build-to-rent project.

Singaporean Developer Buys Conference Centre Site
Singapore-listed developer Ho Bee Land has bought the 69ha Aitken Hill Conference Centre site in Craigieburn for around $140 million.

The site at 20 Dunhelen Lane has a 124-room hotel and 6,000sqm of conference facilities, and includes 45 hectares that could be utilised for a 630-lot housing estate.

Ho Bee Land recently paid $80 million for a 45.6ha former dairy farm site a few kilometres away in Mickleham that can yield more than 600 residential lots. Earlier this year it bought a nearly 60ha site in Tarneit for $73.2 million that is expected to yield 755 lots, as well as an 8.3ha site in Officer for $16.2 million.

Car Dealership and Hungry Jack’s Site Snapped Up
An investor has paid $32.6 million for a 6,953sqm site home to the Chadstone Ford and Hyundai dealership and Hungry Jack’s site, at a 3.32% yield.

Zoned Commercial 1, the 1406-1424 Dandenong Road site sold with potential for a multi-level residential development and has a 15-year lease to the dealership and 10 5-year lease to Hungry Jack’s.

The vendor was Preston Motors, which sold the dealership business separately last year.

The sale follows the owner of one of Australia’s largest Mazda dealerships buying the 8,878sqm Ringwood site they operate from for $15 million, while the home of Australia’s 1st Toyota dealership, at the corner of Chapel and Grosvenor streets and Brighton Road, sold to a Chinese-backed developer for $23.5 million. It is currently used as an Australia Post distribution centre with a lease until 2024.

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.