Axis fills vacant Brisbane tower
Axis Capital has finalised close to 9000 square metres of leasing deals in Brisbane’s 545 Queen Street tower, vindicating its decision to buy the largely vacant office building.
The Brisbane-based outfit bought the Queen Street building from GPT’s unlisted office fund for a little more than $70 million two years ago.
It was a calculated risk by Axis. At the time of its acquisition the 13,000 square metre building was only 30 per cent occupied after its major tenant Flight Centre had moved to the Southpoint complex at South Bank.
Since then Sonic Healthcare, CSG International, South 32, Calibre, Bentley Systems and McPherson Group have all committed to the A-grade building, which was redeveloped in 2008 before being refurbished and repositioned by Axis to help spur leasing demand.
CBRE’s James Comino and Gerry Leyden have steered the leasing campaign, with most of the commitments secured in the past three to six months.
“Axis has worked hard to design and complete the refurbishment works to the building foyer, cafe, end of trip facilities and individual floor upgrades,” Mr Comino said.
“Most of the new tenants were drawn to the large, campus-style floor plates, with no other 2000 square metre plus floors available in the Brisbane CBD. This was a unique selling point for prospective tenants, with all the larger floors now leased.”
Mr Leyden said occupancy is now at 89 per cent, with only a couple of vacancies remaining.
The new leases have been signed at gross rents ranging from $600 per square metre to $625 per square metre on long lease terms of up to 10 years.
The success at Queen Street tower comes as Brisbane’s office market gains momentum, showing the biggest improvement of any city in the most recent Property Council fo Australia vacancy figures.
Leasing deals such as Suncorp’s one for Mirvac’s planned 80 Ann Street, helped pull the vacancy rate in the Queensland capital down to 14.6 per cent by July last year.
The improving economic environment reduced the vacancy rate by 1.5 percentage points from 16.1 per cent in January and reversed the deterioration the city suffered in the previous six-month period.
