Commercial Confidential: Brisbane property, leasing news and gossip
Virgin Australia has started the ball rolling for a future Brisbane HQ, and there are a number of potential options in the running.
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WE HEAR Virgin Australia has kicked off the long-term process to find new headquarters.
The airline is currently at the Charter Hall-owned office building at 56 Edmondstone Rd, Bowen Hills, with up to six or seven years left on the lease.
It is understood CBRE is running the off-market search and sources say if there is a formal requirement they would be looking at around 15,000sq m in the fringe.
Proposed developments believed to be the mix are:
* Cornerstone Properties’ site at 301 Wickham St in the Valley which has approval for a 25-storey office tower
* Charter Hall’s 16-level tower at 11 Breakfast Creek Rd, Newstead
* Lend Lease’s King Street site at the RNA Showground redevelopment
* Tribune Properties approved 18-storey tower located in the China Town Mall at 31 Duncan St, Fortitude Valley.
A Virgin Australia spokesperson said there was nothing to report at this stage.
‘Since Paul Scurrah commenced as our CEO, we’ve been conducting a review across all areas of our business. We have no updates to provide on our property portfolio,” she said.
Rare riverfront gem
ONE of the few riverfront sites left in South Brisbane’s industrial precinct is on the market.
A 4282sq m site with a warehouse at 91 Montague Rd is being sold through JLL’s Elliott O’Shea and Seb Turnbull.
It is expected to attract strong interest as an initial land banking play with income.
However, being zoned for up to 30 storeys it will attract apartment developers keen to make the most of the riverfront and city views.
O’Shea says the property is prime riverfront real estate, which partnered with its favourable zoning parameters will lead to a “skyline defining development and rare River and CBD views”.
According to CoreLogic it is owned by Schiavello Commercial Interiors (QLD) who bought it in 1992 for $1.4 million.
With the apartment market bottoming out we wonder how long a few other industrial icons on the street will survive on the riverfront.
Next door at 99-137 Montague Rd is O-I Australia’s massive the 7ha glass bottle plant which first opened in the site in 1918.
Hanson Concrete has a 1ha site tucked behind O-I Australia’s factory on the river while down the road at 65 Montague is Parmalat’s milk factory which has been on and off the market for years as a premium development site.
Going out on top
A TRAILBLAZER in the Brisbane property industry, Christine Talty, has struck her final deal with Commercial Brisbane and will retire at the end of the month.
One of the few female industrial focused agents and property managers in the field she will close the door on a 32-year career in the residential and commercial property industry.
“I love it. Commercial is fantastic, It's the best of both worlds and I have really enjoyed focusing on the industrial sector,” she says.
Talty started in residential in 1987 and then kicked off her commercial career with Trent Bruce’s Raine & Horne Commercial in 2004.
She joined PRD Commercial in Brisbane two years later and after Colliers took over PRD Nationwide she went out on her own as a two-thirds owner of the business.
In 2009 there was a name change to Commercial Brisbane and two years later she became the full owner until she sold the business in July last year to Glenn Corrigan.
Talty says she is looking forward to retirement where she will be “taking plenty of holidays, doing the garden and volunteering”.
She will also be increasing her responsibilities at the Brisbane Jazz Club which “will take up a lot of my time”.
Crackdown on shady practice
QUEENSLAND’S building industry watchdog, the Australian Taxation Office and ASIC have joined forces in an educational offensive against illegal phoenixing in the building industry.
Illegal phoenix activity is the evasion of tax and other responsibilities, such as employee entitlements, through the deliberate, systematic and sometimes repeated liquidation of related corporate trading entities.
The seminars follow the Special Joint Taskforce led by Justice John Byrne, which investigated illegal and fraudulent building activity in Queensland and referred 108 matters to relevant law enforcement authorities, including the ATO and ASIC.
The Queensland Building and Construction Commission, the ATO and the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) will co-host a series of free road shows for building industry members across the state.
A 2018 report commissioned by the ATO, ASIC and the Fair Work Ombudsman estimates the annual impact of illegal phoenix activity across the Australian economy on businesses, employees and the government is between $2.85 billion and $5.13 billion.
QBCC Commissioner Brett Bassett said: “In the building industry, illegal phoenixing hurts everyone from mum-and-dad businesses, to subcontractors and suppliers.”
“These seminars will help members of our industry to identify and hopefully avoid the methods used by the unscrupulous individuals who engage in this behaviour,” he said.
Seminar information, including registration details, is available from the QBCC website.
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