This article is from the Australian Property Journal archive
US private equity real estate firm Cabot Properties will develop a fifth logistics estate in Melbourne after buying a 9.3-hectare site in the northern suburbs for $41 million.
Cabot already has two projects in the western suburb of Truganina and two projects in the south east suburbs.
The newly 131-149 Somerton Road site will be transformed into an A-grade logistics estate with an estimated on-completion value of $130 million, consisting of 55,000 sqm of lettable area across three buildings, catering to tenancies from 4,000 sqm up to 45,000 sqm.
“The acquisition complements our existing portfolio and directly aligns with our strategy to develop high quality, sustainable logistics assets in core infill locations,” Jonathan Herb, director of investments at Cabot, said.
“It is rare to be able to create an estate of this scale and quality in such a core infill location. Our recent experience in similar markets demonstrates there is a lack of high-quality options for tenants in these locations with all our developments leasing well ahead of PC.”
On the sell side is petrol king Nikos Andrianakos, whose Nikos Property Group has just made the move into major retail centres, buying a 50% interest in Adelaide’s Colonnades Shopping Centre for $138.2 million.
CBRE’s Daniel Eramo and Joe Brzezek brokered the Campbellfield deal off-market.
Approximately 18 kilometres from the Melbourne CBD, the property offers easy access to Cooper Street, Sydney Road, the Hume Freeway, Metropolitan Ring Road and Tullamarine Freeway.
Northern Melbourne’s industrial vacancy rate set to continue to fall towards 0.5% in the coming weeks, according to CBRE. The firm expects Melbourne’s record low industrial vacancy rate will likely stay under 2% over the coming two years, leading to double-digit growth in land values as zoned land supply shrinks.
“Large-scale infill development sites within Melbourne’s core northern industrial precinct are extremely rare,” Eramo said.
“With this purchase, Cabot is poised to capitalise on the rising occupier demand in the market, and capture future rental growth through the development of its new warehouses.”
Elsewhere in Melbourne, Perth-based GM Property Group is looking to take advantage of the demand for infill industrial sites, hoping for $90 million from properties in Tottenham and Mulgrave.
For the second year running Melbourne led the country with the highest proportion of industrial sales volumes, according to JLL, accounting for 38% of the national total.
