This article is from the Australian Property Journal archive
EG Funds is offloading a DA approved residential development site worth circa $70 million in Sydney’s Auburn.
The 26,876sqm site at 1A and 1B Queen Street, around 18km west of the Sydney CBD and 5km east of Parramatta, is being offered with a DA approval for 595 apartments in a community hub of 12 interconnected blocks of three-, six- and eight-storey buildings.
Alex Mirzaian and Ben Wicks from CBRE, alongside Guillaume Volz, Jon Chomley and James Cowan from Colliers have been appointed to manage the sale of the asset, via an expressions of interest campaign.
“This site is an outstanding opportunity for a developer to secure a dependable pipeline of apartment development, with the added opportunity to develop a portion of the site for Build-to-Rent use,” said Mirzaian.
“This site will appeal to a broad range of buyers given its vast land area provides an efficient platform for construction, and with forecast rental growth and immigration rises we expect investor interest to re-emerge in the west.”
EG Funds previously developed the masterplan to include construction across three stages, with each stage including a central plaza area and multiple accessways to total over 1,400sqm of publicly-accessible space, including three parks.
16,133sqm of the site is currently occupied by five industrial warehouses across, with the majority of tenants on month-by-month lease terms for a gross annual income of around $1,050,000.
“There are cyclical and structural changes occurring in Sydney, which will support the next cycle of Build-to-Sell apartment projects as well as the emergence of the Build-to-Rent sector,” said Volz.
“This includes the acceptance of family living in apartments, increased detached dwelling affordability constraints, rapidly rising rents and the return of immigration as travel continues to improve.”
The development site is south of Auburn’s centre, with both Auburn Central and Auburn Train Station placed within a 10-minute walk and the M4 Motorway within close proximity providing easy access.
“Build-to-Rent is a real prospect on this site with the staging plan and a mass of local amenity to complement the nearby railway station,” added Mirzaian.
While the suburb of Auburn itself offers multiple school and childcare and healthcare facilities.
“We believe that record low commencements of new-build projects will be felt in the market and as new generation off-the-plan properties become available and buyers value the benefits they offer, developers will be able to achieve higher pricing from new developments,” concluded Volz.
The expressions of interest campaign for the landholding at 1A and 1B Queen Street is scheduled to close at 28 September 2022.
After an 18-month period of growth, having doubled the of their size of assets under management to $5.1 billion, EG has recently appointed Roger Parker and Chris Pak as its joint managing directors.
