Record set after $16m-plus Doncaster Hill deal
A prominent Doncaster Hill block, recently permitted to make way for a landmark 12-level apartment tower, has sold to a local developer for more than $16 million – a deal that values each permitted dwelling at a record price of more than $90,000.
The 3231-square-metre parcel at 600 Doncaster Road, on the south-east corner of Elgar Road, includes a low-rise, brick, office building, an open air carpark and several adjoining tracts of land, some previously owned by the City of Manningham council.
After nearly two years of negotiations, the council in March approved a plan for a medium-density apartment complex with 174 oversized units, 710 square metres of ground floor retail space and 229 car spaces.
The proposed complex, branded Vantage throughout the recent site sale campaign, is set to include a cascading vertical garden flowing to an orchard-themed forecourt.
At one of the highest points in metropolitan Melbourne, about 120 metres above sea level, Vantage will offer occupants postcard views encapsulating the CBD, Port Phillip Bay and Macedon Ranges.
The purchaser is a local developer sometimes called Rekon Real Estate, which is also responsible for Footscray’s Saltriver Place. The vendor is a private investor who built the office in the 1980s.
Colliers International agents Hamish Burgess, Peter Bremner and Trent Hobart with GormanKelly’s David Minton and Robert Kelly declined to comment on any part of the campaign when contacted.
Their sale comes six months after a 3257-square-metre site at 666 Doncaster Road, offered without a redevelopment permit, was reported as sold for $15 million, reflecting a land rate of just over $4600 per square metre.
Last year, a 4245-square-metre site in the area, permitted for an 11-level, 296-unit tower, exchanged to a Chinese developer, for about $5000 per square metre – like 600 Doncaster Road.
A residential home occupying a prime 3917-square-metre block at 92-96 Williamson Road, and the PappaRich restaurant, covering 6232 square metres at 534-540 Doncaster Road, are other sites to recently sell; both these properties are now earmarked for medium-density housing, the latter, as aged care.
More medium-density dwellings are expected within Mirvac’s Tullamore complex – the name given to the precinct’s Eastern Golf Course redevelopment.
Doncaster, 15 kilometres from town, has been identified as a major metropolitan activity centre for more than 10 years, and was where Melbourne’s first “suburban skyscrapers” were developed, as an experiment.
Another Box Hill tower looms
Another major complex is earmarked for Box Hill, with a developer paying $6.68 million for a 928-square-metre site, offered with a permit for a 12-level mixed-use complex containing 48 flats, six offices, two ground-floor shops and 68 car spaces.
The parcel at 9-11 Ellingworth Parade had been on the market for about a year via Lindellas Commercial agent, Dennis Dellas.
Merri Health buys new HQ
Merri Health Community Services has bought a retail and commercial asset at one of northern Melbourne’s busiest intersections.
Marketed as The Coburg Corner, the double-storey red-brick building at the south-west junction of Sydney Road and Bell Street, in Coburg, includes 1250 square metres of lettable area, leased to a variety of retailers.
On a 753-square-metre block, the sites known as 491-495 Sydney Road and 83-91 Bell Street, were marketed to investors and developers.
The asset, with 11 tenancies, has the potential to earn annual rent of more than $270,000, according to the selling agents, Alex Ham and Benjamin Klein of Gross Waddell, and Scott Orchard, Rorey James and Josh Twelftree, from CBRE.
Instead, Merri Health will refurbish the property, utilising the second storey as its headquarters.
The not-for-profit organisation acquired the asset after it passed in at auction last month for $4.025 million. The sale price is undisclosed, however industry sources speculate it is close to $5 million. The asset was offloaded by a local investor who paid $1.38 million in 2002.
Email: marcpallisco@gmail.com
Twitter: @marcpallisco
