This article is from the Australian Property Journal archive
JUST a fortnight after offloading a recently-completed homemaker centre for $50 million, MaxCap and Troon Group have snapped up 10 hectares of industrial land in south east Melbourne for a warehousing development.
Located at 618 Clayton Road in Clayton South, nearly 20 kilometres from the CBD, the regular-shaped vacant site has industrial 1 zoning and the joint venture partners intend to deliver about 60,000 sqm of warehousing.
“We remain bullish about investing in zoned industrial land parcels in prime infill locations across Australia’s east coast which we have been doing for five years now,” said Simon Hulett, head of direct investment at MaxCap.
“This is our first acquisition in Melbourne’s well-established south-east logistics precinct, the most tightly held market in Victoria, primarily due to how rare sites like this are and how hard they can be to secure.
“We continue to see effective rental growth in established industrial precincts such as Clayton, primarily driven by a vacancy rate of less than 1% and a lack of new development stock.”
He noted that whilst demand has slowed from the highs of the pandemic, he said e-commerce penetration rates continue to grow, and the last-mile delivery service remains “highly competitive”.
“With an established residential population directly opposite the site and proximity to major arterial roads, demand for this location is likely to be strong.”
Tom McInerney, managing director of Troon Group suggested there was some complexity in acquiring the site, which was a landfill site over 30 years ago.
“We have undertaken significant due diligence and stakeholder engagement to gain confidence in navigating this complexity with the relevant authorities to deliver much-needed supply of high-quality product to service the overwhelming demand for last-mile logistics facilities.”
He said the opportunity to be able to deliver a super prime industrial business park in this location was “unmissable”.
The sale was managed by David Aiello of CBRE.
MaxCap Group and Troon Group are fresh from offloading the newly completed large-format retail centre Chirnside Lifestyle Centre in Chirnside Park, in Melbourne’s north east. They had initially bought that site in December of 2020 from German hypermarket Kaufland, which was selling down sites it had earmarked for its outlets before sensationally pulling the plug on its Australian excursion.
In another industrial site deals in Melbourne, Bega Cheese has found a buyer for the 100-year-old Vegemite factory after a year of shopping the Port Melbourne asset around.
Charter Hall will pay $114.6 million – short of the $150 million Bega was hoping for – for the 36,915 sqm facility at 1 Vegemite Way. Bega Cheese, which has owned the famous Australian spread since 2017, will take on a 15 year leaseback with a 10-year option.
In Australian Property Journal’s latest Talking Property podcast, Benjamin Martin-Henry, head of real estate research, Pacific, MSCI, said industrial was “hurting the most” of all the core sectors – which are all well down – but only because it was had been going at record levels.
