Swiss Fund Manager Buys Swinburne Uni’s CBD Building
Swiss fund manager Fidinam has acquired the century-old CBD office building known as Invicta House from Swinburne University for $40 million as a value-add play.
The vacant 226-232 Flinders Lane property is close the corner of Swanston Street and the future Town Hall station that will form part of the Melbourne Metro Tunnel project.
Swinburne, which has its main campus in Hawthorn, planned to convert the building into a vertical campus when it acquired the property 2 years ago.
Fidinam made the purchase on behalf of ST Australia Real Estate. It also bought the 12-storey Art Deco 22 William Street building in the CBD 18 months ago for $52 million, also with scope to value-add.
Invicta House had been owned by the Lazarovits family since 1998 until Swinburne’s purchase, and was occupied by Melbourne East Police Station and Greenhouse Backpackers, part of the Lazarovits’ Friendly Backpackers business.
The 6,482sqm building is on a 741sqm site opposite the Nicholas Building and on the corner of Monaghan Place. It is also next door to the circa-1911 former rag-trade building Manchester House.
A number of CBD buildings have changed hands recently as the city has reopened. The Bank of China divested 266-270 Queen Street for around $15 million to Regis Capital Partners, whose local branch is linked with the owners of the 280 Queen Street sale next door. The purchase expanded their landholding on the corner of Queen and Little Lonsdale streets to 1,745sqm.
The 3,267sqm, 9-storey building home to the head offices of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba at 411 Collins Street sold for more than $40 million, and residential developer Burbank divested the historic 5-level building at 100 Franklin Street, which had been its headquarters for nearly 20 years, to developer Landream for almost $30 million. Burbank had obtained approval for 22-storey tower with 84 dwellings and almost 4,000sqm of commercial space on the site.
Stockland Adds Tarneit Site to Development Pipeline
Diversified developer Stockland has bought a 38ha site in Melbourne’s booming western corridor to build 493 new homes.
The parcel is an undeveloped portion of the Grand Central master planned community being built by Chinese company New Sky Group.
Grand Central is located within the Victorian Planning Authority’s Riverdale Precinct Structure Plan and will be eventually be serviced by the Riverdale train station, a town centre and a regional indoor recreation facility.
Developer Villawood bought 125ha of land in the suburb in August from Central Equity for $180 million, including a 77ha site that has recently been launched as a new 2,000-lot community.
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.