Liverpool Centrelink sells for $52.5m in busy commercial market
A four-storey office building in western Sydney’s Liverpool sold for $52.5 million – 65 per cent more than three years ago – as a private investor bought into the promise of an infrastructure-driven uplift from the new airport in western Sydney.
Records show Sydney-based Stanley Xue, formerly known as Sit Shing Ho, bought the building at 211 Northumberland Street on an initial yield of 6.6 per cent. He paid almost two-thirds more than the $31.8 million the building sold for when the former Denison Diversified Property Fund asset was acquired by Propertylink and Goldman Sachs in 2016.
With commercial assets in markets such as North Sydney and Parramatta hard to find, investors have pushed into other suburban markets such as Liverpool. The area will also benefit from major project investments such as the $5.3 billion Western Sydney International Airport, which is due to begin operations in 2026.
“Liverpool has really had a huge amount of money in in the last 12 months but it’s been hugely driven by that infrastructure story and the promise of the airport coming,” said Ray White Commercial Western Sydney Managing Director Peter Vines.
The property, fully leased to the federal government as a Centrelink office until 2022, returns an annual income of $3.46 million, making the yield tight, Mr Vines said.
“It’s very tight … But Liverpool does have quite a big story and there’s huge population growth,” he said.
The site has development potential as the existing 7645-square-metre building could be replaced by something closer to 30,000 square metres, Mr Vines said.
A number of developers are already making plans for Liverpool, earmarked as a third CBD for Sydney.
Last year contractor Built signed a joint venture with Liverpool Council for a $400 million-plus mixed-use development on council-owned land.
Liverpool mayor Wendy Waller said the Liverpool Civic Place project was part of more than $1 billion worth big mixed-use developments in the pipeline for the city of Liverpool. These include developer Mackycorp’s 25,000-square-metre Liverpool Quarter office tower and separate plans by the Uniting Church and private landowners for a 3490-square-metre site near Elizabeth and Bigge streets in the CBD.
