Development site at Box Hill sells for $50 million

A Spotlight Group-owned development site at Box Hill has been sold to CBD Development Group for almost $50 million. The 4,268 sq m property at 851 Whitehorse Road has a permit in place for three residential towers.

Designed by Plus Architecture, the proposed development has a three-tower design for 539 apartments rising up to 37 levels and a 150-room hotel.

Colliers International’s Development Site Sales team, Trent Hobart, Bryson Cameron, Hamish Burgess and Jun Lai, managed the international expressions-of- interest campaign, which attracted multiple offers from local and offshore parties.

Cameron said the result highlighted the increasing development capital flowing into the suburbs of Melbourne: “This deal reaffirms the underlying confidence in the suburban apartment market from the Asian origin developer community in Melbourne."“The campaign was highly competitive and the vendor received multiple offers from mainland China, Hong Kong, Sydney and Melbourne developers, ultimately selling to the locally based CBD Development group,” Cameron said.

According to Colliers, several of Melbourne’s eastern suburbs, such as Box Hill and Glen Waverley, were considered “international destinations of choice” among some of the world’s most prominent developers.

“This is due to the strong fundamentals of our apartment market, including healthy migration, easy access to education, retail and transport, and a local demographic that understands apartment living.” Cameron said.

Planning image: Plus ArchitectureThe sale price represents almost $100,000 per apartment for high-density land outside the CBD.

“We are witnessing more developers’ capital now flowing into the suburban regions of Melbourne,” Hobart said.

“It has become increasingly difficult to find development sites with scale within the CBD, which is a result of the densities being increasingly capped and the simple fact there are less sites available for redevelopment.”

Hamish Burgess from Colliers International’s Development Site Sales team said the appetite for apartments in Box Hill and surrounding suburbs was expected to continue, and ultimately increase, with Melbourne’s burgeoning population and enviable lifestyle.

“With the pent-up demand for residential accommodation in the CBD being constrained by the government, the suburbs allowing higher densities with a demographic who understand the lifestyle of apartment living will continue to thrive,” Burgess said.

“These two major suburban transactions break new ground for Melbourne’s suburbs and reaffirm the strengthening demand from Asian-origin development companies seeking world-scale residential apartment projects in suburban Melbourne.”