This article is from the Australian Property Journal archive
TELSTRA has lobbed its global headquarters, opposite Monash University in Melbourne’s south east, to the market with expectations of $80 million in its latest real estate divestment play.
On the block is the 6.5-hectare parcel at 762-766 Blackburn Road, and while it is being offered with a leaseback, much of the site’s value can likely to be found in its development potential.
It is also located opposite the new $564 million Victorian Heart Hospital, and is being billed as the largest remaining development site within the Monash National Employment and Innovation Cluster (NEIC).
The offering comes two years after Telstra sold its data centre in the same suburb to Centuria Industrial REIT for $416.7 million. The national telco announced a $2 billion asset divestment plan in 2018 that has also seen the sales of the 76-78 Pitt Street office tower in the Sydney CBD for $281.5 million to Charter Hall Long WALE REIT and the Edison Exchange building in Brisbane, while last year it offloaded a 49% interest in its mobile phone towers business to a consortium comprising the Future Fund, Commonwealth Superannuation Corporation and Sunsuper for $2.8 billion.
JLL’s Josh Rutman, Jesse Radisich, Noral Wild and MingXuan Li have been appointed to sell the Blackburn Road property via expressions of interest campaign, with the process to be managed by Urbis.
“The sheer scale of the underlying landholding and the flexible zoning will undoubtedly attract a variety of developers across a broad range of sectors, who will see an opportunity to capitalise on the tremendous demand being seen in this world-class education, technology and research precinct,” Rutman said.
The precinct is home to 13,000 businesses and medical and research facilities that also include the CSIRO, BrainPark, Monash Health and the Australian Synchrotron, and Moderna recently committed to a location in the immediate precinct to establish a $2 billion mRNA manufacturing facility.
It is also close to the proposed Monash train station, which will form part of the suburban rail loop that is planned to connect Monash University to Burwood and Box Hill, allowing a free flow of workers, students and visitors between three major education hubs.
“The site presents buyers with the opportunity to acquire a substantial holding amongst Melbourne’s largest cohort of skilled workers outside the CBD, within a precinct that contributes around $9.4 billion a year to the Victorian economy,” Wild said.
“We expect a diverse range of interest given the property’s unrivalled potential to house medical, light industrial, data centre or life sciences facilities”.
Expressions of interest close 7th December.
