Industrial Buys Bump Centennial, Brookfield JV Assets to $293m

Joint-venture partners Centennial and Brookfield have added two NSW industrial and logistics assets to their partnership.

The national property fund manager and partner Brookfield Real Estate Secondaries have paid around $163 million for the two Sydney properties under their $700-million Enhanced Value Partnership (EVP) fund.

The fund has acquired two industrial infill sites—one at Brookvale on Sydney’s Northern Beaches and the other at Prestons in the south-west.

The two acquisitions give the fund a foothold in Sydney’s mid-space urban logistics sector with the sites offering solid passing income, revenue growth and excellent incremental redevelopment opportunities, according to Centennial.

“The two new assets are a perfect fit for our $700-million EVP fund, which recently closed oversubscribed,” Centennial chief executive industrial and logistics Paul Ford said.

“We’ve been really selective in our site choices in Sydney and are very happy with the Prestons and Brookvale sites given their land-rich nature along with flexible improvements that align with our niche strategy, focusing on mid-space, urban infill sites within land constrained or last-mile logistics areas.”

There are now seven industrial assets in the Centennial-managed fund, which was launched in May and is worth $293 million.

Conditional contracts have been exchanged on the Brookvale site comprising two adjoining industrial parks spanning around 42,000sq m at 114 and 120 Old Pittwater Road.

The asset will be acquired from Centuria Capital Group, subject to completion of conditions precedent.

The transaction was brokered by Gavin Bishop of Colliers and CBRE’s Chris O’Brien.

Purchased as two separate lots for around $84 million, the Brookvale site offers Centennial flexibility for future redevelopment including the potential to build a multi-storey warehouse to take advantage of Sydney’s critically low vacancy rates.

The multi-tenanted site contains 29,607sq m of gross lettable area (GLA) housing a range of blue-chip tenants including a Woolworths distribution centre, FujiFilm, Padi Asia, and state and federal government departments including the Australian Electoral Commission.

▲ The newly acquired site at Brookvale [above] and the Preston site [top].

The second site is in the established industrial corridor of Prestons and was aquired from Charter Hall for $79 million in a deal brokered by Cushman Wakefield.

Covering a 5.3ha site at 115-121 Jedda Road, the asset contains two large format generic refrigerated logistics facilities, occupied by Primo Smallgoods which sub-leases part of its warehouse to supermarket giant Aldi.

Centennial head of property funds David Cupit said they were “delighted to secure the Prestons site and expand our presence in the south-west.

“The Prestons site is well located next to major road and transport infrastructure networks as well as the under-way Western Sydney Airport, which is 13km from the site and due to open in 2026.

“It is a high-income producing asset offering certainty of income from a multi-national tenant, along with the ability to create additional GLA.

“Given the site’s suitability for future development and reconfiguration, we are confident of adding value to the asset and repurposing it into an institutional-grade investment.”

The aquisitions bring Centennial’s total industrial and logistics platform to 68 assets in NSW, Victoria, Queensland and South Australia, and valued in excess of $1.5 billion with a development pipeline of about $350 million.