Who wants a $2.6m bite of Rex Hunt’s old waterfront haunt, D’lish?

Hunt, a keen fisherman and former Richmond and Geelong footballer, established the shop in 1998 and sold it in 2008 for $1.5 million.

Fitzroys’ Chris Kombi and Tom Fisher are quoting more than $2.6 million for the 105 Beach Street shop.

The 270-square-metre property has a 10-year lease with three six-year options.

Rubber stamp

The last of the rubber-stamped development sites on Elizabeth Street is up for sale, but time is of the essence, with its 33-level tower permit running out later in the year.

The vendors, Malaysian capital-backed Goodyear Properties, thought they had sold the 1530-square-metre site in late 2021 for a bumper $40 million-plus.

But in a sign of its impending doom, the buyer, Chinese capital-backed property group APH Holdings, which collapsed just before Christmas, never settled on the purchase.

The former Royal Saxon Hotel (and latterly Toad Hall backpackers) at No. 441-447, its neighbour at No. 449-451 and a 19th-century office-warehouse at the rear at 139 Franklin Street, cover an L-shaped parcel of land.

Built in 1858, the hotel and its neighbours represent one of the last intact strips of Gold Rush-era Melbourne. Goodyear Properties paid a combined $8 million for the properties between 2006 and 2012.

It’s back on the market at about the price it fetched in 2021 – around $30,000 a square metre – and comes with a permit for 202 apartments and ground-floor shops.

The permit was obtained amid some controversy in 2015, as the then planning minister Richard Wynne continued Matthew Guy’s practice of rubber-stamping projects on the Elizabeth Street strip, forever changing the north-western entrance to the city and the Queen Victoria Market.

Since then, even more apartment projects have been approved in the precinct, with the market the next to be surrounded by high-rise buildings.

Stonebridge agents Julian White and Chao Zhang have the listing.

James Zhang’s APH Holdings started unravelling last year, with a dozen properties and development sites worth more than $300 million flooding the market.

Zhang’s Ausea Star bought 420 Elizabeth Street, across the road, for $75.6 million in 2016. The sales board says it’s “under offer” but the due diligence is taking a long time.

Sky One

Developer Golden Age is having another crack at selling its trophy Box Hill retail precinct at the foot of the Sky One residential tower.

The 3396-square-metre Sky One Plaza takes up the first three floors of the 36-level apartment tower and is anchored by the Bank of China and Hai Di Lao Hotpot.

The mini shopping centre pulls in $4.1 million in rent and has an average lease term of 7.4 years.

CBRE agents Sam Guest, Jamie Hess, Trent Hobart, James Douglas and Jing Jun Heng are handling the off-market listing and expect around $60 million.

The building was completed at the start of 2020 and was last pitched as a test of the market in 2022, but sentiment was softening fast and it did not sell.

Sky One is the tallest residential building outside the city and dominates the suburban skyline. It is just one of a forest of towers in Box Hill, which has been dubbed Melbourne’s second CBD.

Meanwhile, Golden Age has started construction on SKY SQR, the 425-unit 18-level twin tower project next door, which it sold in 2023 to build-to-rent operator Local for $360 million.

Super tight

Wonthaggi’s busy new Bunnings store has sold for a bumper price believed to be around $20 million on a super-tight 5 per cent yield.

It’s the first Victorian store to be sold by the retail hardware giant since 2019, when Bunnings sold a new 16,000-square-metre store in Clyde North to Charter Hall for $42.3 million.

Wonthaggi’s new 9000-square-metre store at 140 McKenzie Street opened in mid-2023. Bunnings has a 10-year lease on the building, which is on a 2.1-hectare site.

Records show a private local family with other interests in the south-east bought the property. The 5 per cent deal is significantly competitive for a regional retail investment. The Clyde North store sold on a 4.5 per cent yield.

The off-market deal was negotiated by Savills’ Rick Silberman and Steve Bolton, who declined to comment on the buyer or the price.

Bunnings’ old building in Wonthaggi, which is owned by MPG Funds, has been demolished to make way for a new large-format shopping complex leased to Super Cheap Auto, BCF, Forty Winks and Choice Discount Variety.

JB Hi-Fi

Chapel Street’s vacancy rate is set for another fall with a string of shops leased over the summer, most notably a new location for JB Hi-Fi.

JB has moved into the 986-square-metre ground floor of 321 Chapel Street, on the corner of Chatham Street, between Coles and Pran Central.

Teska Carson agents Rory Teska Szer and Reece Israel negotiated the lease and a further six, including 150 Greville Street, which was leased in just three weeks.

The electrical goods retailer has moved across the street from 282 Chapel, where Dan Murphy’s has expanded into more space at the location of its first shop. Dan Murphy – the person – set up shop in the basement of the grand Prahran Arcade in 1952.

Fitzroys’ Walk the Strip vacancy rate tracker found Chapel Street’s vacancy rate fell to 7.1 per cent last year after hitting a high of 20.4 per cent during the pandemic.

“Rents are well down from their peak and have stabilised in the $550-$650 a metre range. More recently, we have been doing deals for the prime shops in the $800-plus range,” Rory Teska Szer said.

While the strip had been struggling for years, the impending redevelopment of the Jam Factory is prompting renewed optimism among tenants.

Eaton Mall

The former State Savings Bank on Oakleigh’s popular Eaton Mall is going to auction on April 10.

The Victorian-era stalwart at 30-36 Eaton Mall houses recent Stock Exchange debutante Chemist Warehouse and three other tenants.

The auction will be one to watch as various directors and shareholders of Chemist Warehouse have been keen buyers of their outlets’ freeholds.

The tenants pay around $420,000 a year in rent. The building is on 867 square metres of land in the mall, which is dominated by busy Greek restaurants and cafes.

Cushman & Wakefield agents Raphael Favas, George Davies, Daniel Wolman and Leon Ma are handling the auction.

Just three properties on Eaton Mall have gone to market in the past 15 years, selling with an average yield of 2.93 per cent, Davies said.