Buyer Scrum In South Melbourne Creates 86% Price Gain For Supersite

A South Melbourne supersite with over 200 metres of prominent street frontage was sold for more than $41 million to Melbourne-based property investment and development firm GLG.

The transaction represented an 86% price gain since it last changed hands in 2013, where it was sold for $22 million.

CBRE’s Victorian Development Sites team of Mark Wizel, Julian White, Lewis Tong and Bianca Butterworth negotiated the sale of the high profile portfolio, comprising 10 titles totaling 4,641 square metres.

The site offers 203 metres’ street frontage to York, Cecil, Market and Northumberland streets, and GLG plan to undertake a commercial and retail development on the site, which has a 23.5 metre height limit.

Mr Wizel said the property’s scale and prominent position attracted unprecedented interest, with more than 160 enquiries received.

“We haven’t had a campaign quite like it in a long time," he said.

"The interest from such a wide range of buyers resulted in a huge number of conforming tenders with a local developer outmuscling a range of institutional and overseas buyers to secure the exciting land parcel."Fellow selling agent Julian White said the site was ideally situated to capitalise on South Melbourne’s strengthening residential market.

“What was really noteworthy during this campaign, was the strong demand we received from the local developer community."“We knew that large groups would have interest in the site as it had been mooted for some time about the site’s suitability for a large scale office development, but to get such significant buyer interest from local private developers was unexpected.”

Mr White said the sale highlighted strengthening demand for well-located development sites.

“Key measures such as residential auction clearance rates regularly around 80% this year indicate the strength and confidence of Melbourne’s core markets. This has a positive flow on effect to other industry sectors, particularly development.”