This article is from the Australian Property Journal archive
ONE of Australia’s richest people, Solomon Lew’s Premier Investments has trounced residential property developers to acquire the vacant office building at 457 St Kilda Rd for $55 million.
The deal was negotiated by Teska Carson’s Michael Taylor, Michael Ludski and Ion Teska, in conjunction with CBRE’s Josh Rutman, Kiran Pillai and Mark Wizel.
The property was last sold in 2002 through Teska Carson and it changed hands for $23.25 million.
The property was marketed as a major development opportunity, reflecting the trend of converting office to residential market along the boulevard.
Taylor said the price reflected both the very strong demand for St Kilda Rd property and an acute awareness of a looming shortage of prime opportunities in a booming residential market.
“St KiIda Rd has been in the news most recently regarding conversions to residential with tens of thousands of sqm of office stock withdrawn in the last 12 months alone.
“This fact was not lost on a development community eager to play a part in providing quality residential product to Melbourne’s rapidly growing population and what better address could you find,”
“On the other hand St Kilda Road remains an office address of choice offering an unrivalled parkland environment and superb access to the CBD which has driven phenomenal rental growth over the last 12 to 18 months.
“Either way the building provided an exceptional investment opportunity,” Taylor said.
The eight-storey property comprises 9,349 sqm of office space with 119 parking bays, set on a 3,035 sqm site. It was recently vacated by Computershare subsidiary, Serviceworks Management and the property was sold with vacant possession.
Rutman said there had been a predictably high level of enquiry with 10 expressions of interest lodged reducing to a short list of three including a strong off-shore representation.
“While the property’s appeal to developers might seem obvious there remains a high level of interest from office tenants for a St Kilda Road address and the competition that those competing interests creates will continue to drive strong results,” Rutman said.
Australian Property Journal
