Regent Theatre outgunned by $100m car park expected to fill council coffers

Forget the fuss over the Regent Theatre! The City of Melbourne is poised to make more than $100 million from the sale of a Little Collins Street car park in the coveted East End precinct.

The cash would provide a serious sweetener to the council’s $781 million budget and rather more than the Regent Theatre, which is co-owned with the state government and estimated to be worth between $40 million and $50 million.

Earlier this week, City of Melbourne mayoral candidate Nick Reece set off a storm suggesting the council’s half share in the Regent should be sold.

The City of Melbourne-owned car park at 34-60 Little Collins Street.

The council already has a property disposal program and resolved in May to sell the 940-bay car park at 34–60 Little Collins Street and put the proceeds into other capital works and community programs.

Cult Thai restaurant Soi 38 in the car park at 34-60 Little Collins Street.Credit: Eddie Jim

The 11-level Parkade Car Park, built in 1965, is leased to Dexus Property until 2037. It returns $468,832 a year in rent and is on a huge 3885 square metre parcel of land.

Big changes are already afoot, with the cult Thai restaurant set to move from its spot in the car park to the newly renovated Tivoli Arcade at 235 Bourke Street.

JLL agents Nick Peden, Josh Rutman, Paul Kempton and Piper Dedrick have been appointed to sell the property but declined to comment on the potential price.

However, pundits have suggested $30,000 per sq m is the going land rate for East End land which comes to an eye-watering $116.5 million. The Regent is unlikely to command a rate of that order because of its heritage listing.

Freshwater Place car park at 2 Southbank Boulevard, Southbank.Credit:

Another recent car park sale throws the value into sharp relief. Singapore-owned Frasers Property recently sold the 265-bay Freshwater Place car park in Southbank for $16 million to a Singaporean investor.

Leased by Wilson Parking month-to-month, the strata-titled car park returns a stonking $1.07 million a year in rent, giving the deal a 6.72 per cent yield. JLL’s Peden, Rutman and MingXuan Li managed the transaction.

Sell down

APH Holding, the Chinese-backed company selling down its property portfolio amid a funding crisis, has launched another development site onto the bloated market.

The 1527 square metre Box Hill gateway site at 811–823 Whitehorse Road is the latest in a long line of properties worth more than $225 million, which APH Holding is trying to offload.

Strictly speaking, the property on the corner of Elgar Road, next to Box Hill Institute and the picturesque Kingsley Gardens, is in Mont Albert, but it does mark the entry to Box Hill’s CBD.

APH Holding told Capital Gain the company is “pivoting away from our traditional development approach to an investment-focused business model.”

The company has two assets in Box Hill – an 18-storey medical services-focused tower near completion completion – and Irving Domain, a residential project due to finish in mid-2025.

Cushman & Wakefield agents Hamish Burgess, Joe Kairouz and Leon Ma are handling enquiries. The site is expected to sell for between $13-14 million.

811-823 Whitehorse Road, Mont Albert.

While APH has already listed two other development sites in Box Hill, it owns more property in the suburban hotspot and recently sold an empty block of land at 852–858 Glenferrie Road, Hawthorn.

In the CBD, it is selling the part-empty 440 Elizabeth Street, and in the suburbs, it listed the former Hewlett Packard office campus for around $90 million. However, one of its funders, MaxCap, has taken control of the 5.8-hectare property at 353–383 Burwood Road in Forest Hill.

Business park

APH’s Forest Hill campus listing will face some competition, as another business park up the road is coming on the market.

Records show Ouson paid $66.5 million for the Greenwood Business Park in 2015 to a joint venture between Banco Group and the Victor Smorgon Group.

301 Burwood Highway, Burwood

Like APH, the Chinese-owned Ouson Group paid bumper prices for a slew of assets in the late 2010s, contributing to the property cycle’s peak.

This time around, they’re hoping for more than $85 million and pitching the 3.37-ha site as a potential development play. That price point won’t come from its income, as the park’s occupancy rate is barely treading water at about 30 per cent.

The business park at 301 Burwood Highway, on the corner of Station Street, was originally developed in 1991 and includes four towers covering 19,578 sq m of space.

Colliers agents Alex Browne, Jozef Dickinson, Ian Sanders, Thomas Blencowe and Yvonne Zhou are handling enquiries.

There are plenty of development sites hitting the market. Receivers, SV Partners, have been appointed to the company behind Orb Property Partners’ proposed development at 69–75 Racecourse Road, North Melbourne.

Korda Mentha has already been appointed to another of Orb Property Partners’ projects, on the corner of Boundary Road and Alfred Street, North Melbourne.

The Racecourse Road property was bought in 2017 for $3.4 million and is expected to sell for around $6 million. The 1040 sq m site has approved plans for a 12-level mixed-use project.

Also in North Melbourne, Chinese-backed company Australia Xing Five is relinquishing its development plans for an L-shaped site it bought in 2016.

The 2027 sq m site has approvals for 72 apartments across five levels. It is expected to sell for around $10 million. Stonebridge agents Dylan Kilner, Julian White and Chao Zhang are handling the sale.

Office building

An office building in Canterbury’s commercial strip at 15–17 Shierlaw Avenue has sold for $9.25 million to a technology-based owner-occupier.

15-17 Shierlaw Avenue, Canterbury.

Colliers Ben Baines, Alex Browne, Eddie Foulkes, and James Zhuang handled the sale. Records show the 2211 sq m two-storey building last changed hands in 2011 for $8 million.

It is on a 1671 sq m piece of land, with 74 basement car parks, near Canterbury railway station and the Maling Road shopping strip. It boasts a 5-star NABERS rating.

From plastic to storage

A plastics factory in Altona North, once devoted to the manufacture of parts for the auto industry, is set to become a self-storage facility.

Kalex Projects’ Kyp Bosci is paying $19 million for 30–38 McArthurs Road, a 9397 sq m factory and warehouse on a 2.3 hectare site.

It’s a bumper price for an older industrial property but reflects the growing recognition of the inner west’s proximity to the CBD and its fast-growing population. Bosisto Commercial’s Tom Davis and Glyn Bosisto did the deal.

In other industrial moves, local builder Vaughan Constructions has been hired by global drink giant Coca-Cola Europacific Partners to build a new facility at its site in the Moorabbin industrial precinct.

The new $105.5 million “warmfill” production line will make Coca-Cola’s sports drinks, Powerade and Fuze Tea.

The 4225 sq m facility at 20 Levanswell Road is Vaughan’s second project for Coke at Moorabbin.

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