Portmans founders sell prominent Malvern arcade for $7.85m
The Bloom family – retail veterans who established clothing giant Portmans in the 1940s – have banked $7.85 million from the sale of a mixed-use commercial asset with redevelopment potential at a blue-ribbon suburban Melbourne corner.
The un-named Malvern complex at 131-133 Glenferrie Road, on the south-west corner of Llaneast Street, and part of a popular retail strip, exchanged hands at auction last Friday against a $6.5 million guide price.
On a 430-square-metre parcel abutting a large council car park, the double-storey, 860-square-metre building is split into six tenancies – the most prominent ground-floor space occupied by major listed companies Optus and Flight Centre.
Based on the asset’s annual rental return of $271,530, the investment is trading on a low 2.9 per cent yield. The deal values the land at $18,255 a square metre.
The bustling Malvern main street. Photo: Supplied
Allard & Shelton’s James Gregson, Michael Ryan and Joseph Walton marketed the Glenferrie Road property, about eight kilometres south-east of the CBD, to investors and developers.
The Malvern asset was one of two Melbourne properties the Blooms listed for sale recently.
The family is expecting to bank more than $9 million next month from the sale of a fully-leased ex-Portmans-occupied store, at the corner of Bridge Road and Lennox Street, Richmond, in Melbourne’s inner east.
The deal is the latest in Melbourne’s exclusive south-east, to come in at a far higher value than expected.
In July Erasmus College sold a 1698-square-metre corner of its Hawthorn campus to a developer for about $8 million – well above the site’s initial $6.5 million price guide.
Four months earlier, local developer Benson Property Group paid a bullish $10.5 million for a low-rise office on a 1221-square-metre parkside block, also in Hawthorn.
Also in March, a Chinese apartment builder paid $8.5 million, following an off-market negotiation, for a low-rise office on a 1300-square-metre block at 1133 Malvern Road, Malvern. Based on this building’s annual rental return, the property – the local headquarters of Schwarzkopf Professional – sold on a yield of 4.6 per cent.
