This article is from the Australian Property Journal archive
MAKE Ventures has acquired a sawtooth factory site of nearly 4,000 sqm in Melbourne’s inner suburb of Kensington for $17.5 million, which it has earmarked for a build-to-rent-to-buy development in partnership with Assemble.
It will be the Melbourne based investor and developer’s second project in partnership with Assemble, following their $60 million, 73-apartment build-to-rent site at 393 Macaulay Road, also in Kensington.
Dawkins Occhiuto’s Chris Jones negotiated the off-market sale of 88-96 Stubbs Street, which has a 2,461 sqm building and is zoned mixed use and encompasses two titles, and has street or laneway frontages on all sides.
The property sold with two years remaining on a three-year lease to Flexible Drive Agencies, which has been at the site for 40 years, returning $243,586 per annum net. The sale price came in at more than $4,300 per sqm.
Aimed at owner occupiers, the Assemble model involves taking a five-year lease prior to the construction with the opportunity to buy the home at the end of the lease. Both the rental cost and the purchase price are agreed up front.
The 393 Macaulay Road project has recently been backed by the wealthy Alter family, and construction will begin later in the year.
Make Ventures managing director, Kris Daff told Fairfax earlier this month that Make Ventures and Assemble Communities have bought sites with a future pipeline of 1,000 build-to-rent apartments.
Jones said the market for apartment development remained strong despite some conversions or reassignments of apartment projects to office use to sate an arguably stronger current demand for boutique office space on Melbourne’s CBD fringe.
“We have seen a remarkably vibrant apartment market over recent years driven by exceptional population growth and that same driver has been behind a somewhat more lucrative recent shift to office for developers,” he said. “Those twin drivers have seen the development community scouring fringe locations for sites and particularly industrial sites which, at some point, will lend themselves to office and/or residential development.
Australian Property Journal
