This article is from the Australian Property Journal archive
DEVELOPER Time & Place has quickly followed approval of its industrial project in Williamstown North with the $20 million-plus acquisition of a 9.7-hectare site in Melbourne’s northern suburb of Epping from CostaFox.
It takes the group’s industrial pipeline to a combined completed value of $180 million across three sites.
The deal represents a quick doubling in value of the property and a tidy profit for Michael Fox’s development venture with Costa Asset Management, for which it paid $9.5 million around two years ago.
Time & Place commercial director Chris O’Keefe said the group’s confidence in the commercial market remains strong as it looks to take advantage of supply shortages, and will look to complement its residential arm that includes joint ventures with Golden Age Group.
“Commercial acquisitions will continue to be a focus for us in the short-to-mid-term as we seek to deliver projects that meet the needs of mum-and-dad businesses and local industrial investors who are experiencing a lack of supply,” he said.
Cushman & Wakefield national research director Tony Crabb said Melbourne’s northern industrial market for buildings greater than 5,000 sqm consist of around 2.2 million sqm of gross floor area.
“A small 40,000 sqm of prime industrial space is currently vacant, generating a vacancy rate of under 2%,” he said.
O’Keefe said Time & Place has a “strong appetite for industrial land lot projects in Melbourne’s north-west that are located in proximity to existing transport links, offering convenience and connectivity for purchasers”.
The Cooper Street property is adjacent to the wholesale market precinct and offers direct links to the Hume Highway.
“Supply to the industrial market has suffered in recent years due to the mass rezoning of land to residential. As a result, industrial projects have been squeezed out, with less than six years of supply remaining in areas like the inner-western suburbs,” O’Keefe said.
The group has just been given the green light for a 16.7-hectare, 75-lot industrial development in the western bayside suburb of Williamstown North. The Williams Point project has an end value of $85 million to the pipeline, and Time & Place has pre-sold the first two stages of the three-stage development.
Further west in Laverton North, the group has also just launched its second industrial development, The Junction in Dohertys Road, which comprises 55 lots ranging from 1,500 sqm to 15,000 sqm.
In Epping, Vaughan Constructions will build the first speculative industrial facilities worth $60 million for joint venture partners Mirvac and Blackstone, as it launches its new 25-hectare Biodiversity Industrial Estate off the Hume Highway at Epping in Melbourne’s north, while Frasers Property Australia recently picked a 63.4-hectare site, also on Cooper Street, that it will use to develop a new $250 million industrial estate.
Australian Property Journal
