Xavier College sells Brighton campus for $100m to Golden Age
Xavier College, one of Melbourne’s oldest private schools, has sold the Brighton campus of its junior school to Jeff Xu’s Golden Age in a $100 million deal that gives the prominent developer opportunity for a substantial residential play in the wealthy bayside suburb.
The gates closed at Kostka Hall last year for the final time as a result of falling enrolments. The Catholic Jesuit order had established Xavier’s Brighton campus in 1937. Xavier’s other junior school, Burke Hall, and the senior campus are both in Kew.
At the bottom of South Road and just a short walk from Brighton Beach, the Kostka Hall site spans nearly 3.3 hectares and includes the historical Maritima residence, home to Jesuits for many years, along with the school buildings and sports fields.
As pedagogy gives way to real estate, the Jesuits’ exit on South Road provides Mr Xu’s busy development platform a rare entry into one of Melbourne’s most highly sought suburbs. The median sales price of houses in the area is close to $3.4 million while units average more than $1.2 million.
Led by Mr Xu, a dumpling entrepreneur who became a prolific developer, Golden Age has stepped up its focus on suburban development both in Sydney and Melbourne after initially making its name with CBD apartment skyscrapers.
Former school sites are providing plenty of scope to Golden Age to accelerate those suburban dreams. In late 2020, the developer put its foot on a 50,000-square-metre site on Hay Street in Box Hill South occupied by an international school, put up for grabs after lenders appointed a controller for the property.
Mr Xu’s Brighton move represents a big vote of confidence in the suburban market in a city which is still recovering its vibrancy after two years of rolling lockdowns.
The residential construction sector across the country is under pressure from rising costs and shortages in materials and skilled labour. But well-resourced developers are looking past the current situation to restock their pipelines ahead of a forecast shortage of housing, estimated to pass 163,000 dwellings nationally by 2032.
The Brighton transaction is a win for Xavier as well, which has said it plans to reinvest capital into new facilities at its Kew campuses and extend its bursary program.
Colliers’ Trent Hobart, Hamish Burgess, John Marasco and Yvonne Zhou handled the high-profile listing, with Michael Jackson of JACX Property as transaction manager.
Mr Hobart said the school site had won interest from local and international developers, educational institutions and major players in the healthcare, aged care and retirement living sectors.
“We were not surprised to see such strong competition as this is the largest site offered in Brighton in [this] century,” Mr Hobart said.
“Given the location, it represented one of the most prestigious and rare real estate prospects in Melbourne.”
