Monash University pays $66m for former Toyota site
Monash University has snapped up a 3.6-hectare site opposite its Clayton campus in Melbourne’s south-east from Toyota Australia for $66 million, fighting off competition from almost a dozen other buyers, most of them institutional investors.
The landholding at 611-625 Blackburn Road in Notting Hill was home to Toyota’s research and development centre which closed in June 2016 after the Japanese car maker announced it would stop manufacturing cars locally by 2017.
The site is home to a two-level office building offering 3926 square metres of net lettable area, as well as several adjoining workshop facilities and 208 car parking bays.
Although Monash University earlier this month secured the rights to host the Moderna facility at its Clayton campus, it is understood the vaccine plant will be built on a separate site nearby.
Known as the OC1 Carpark on the corner of Blackburn and Wellington Roads, the future Moderna site is next to the Australian Synchrotron research facility and soon to open Victoria Heart Hospital.
Once operational by the end of 2024, it is expected to produce up to 100 million vaccine doses each year including COVID-19, influenza and respiratory syncytial virus vaccines.
Monash University declined to reveal its intentions for the former Toyota site, after it outbid 10 other groups as part of an international expressions of interest campaign.
“Monash University is unable to comment on matters that are commercial in confidence,” said a spokeswoman for the university.
Employment hub
JLL’s Josh Rutman, Noral Wild, Jesse Radisich and Ming Xuan brokered the sale to Monash University on behalf of Toyota, but also declined to comment.
The site was marketed as one of the last remaining significant development sites in the Monash National Employment and Innovation Cluster, Victoria’s largest employment hub outside the Melbourne CBD.
Within this cluster and inclusive of the Toyota site is the Monash Technology Precinct, which is home to the CSIRO, Australian Synchrotron, Victorian Heart Hospital, and Melbourne Centre for Nanofabrication,
“This is the gateway to the Monash Employment and Innovation Cluster, which is already becoming one of the global centres of innovation and research,” said JLL’s Ms Wild when the Toyota holding hit the market in May.
“It’s rare to have such a high-profile site become available in Notting Hill, particularly one with direct access to the suburban rail loop train station which will be less than 100 metres away,” she said.
Mr Rutman said the site’s flexible zoning provided scope for developers and occupiers to get a “strong foothold in proximity to some of the country’s best education, technology and research organisations”.
Established in 2003, the Toyota Technical Centre Australia was one of five such development facilities globally.
Not far away in Burwood East, prominent property investors the Nossbaum family are hoping to fetch about $40 million for a 7619-square-metre modern office building and warehouse at 11 and 12 Wesley Court. The fully leased investment is being marketed by JLL.
