Another $100 million-plus residential land sale pending at Yarraville Gardens
Another big public land sale is whetting the appetites of developers with the 24 hectare former Bradmill site in Yarraville going to market with an expected price tag of $100 million.
Six kilometres from the CBD, the Yarraville Gardens redevelopment has approval for 1500 townhouses and apartments. Also on the drawing board is a 10,000 sq metre neighbourhood shopping centre, possibly with a Coles or Woollies, a library and 400 car parks.
The site (pictured below) could be home for up to 7000 people.
CBRE director Mark Wizel is marketing the property internationally for the Melbourne based family business DeGroup.
“The rarity of 60 acres of residential zoned land six kilometres from the Melbourne CBD simply cannot be understated,” Wizel said.
“There is little doubt that, while off-shore Asian developers are the most active buying group for large inner city sites with residential potential, Yarraville Gardens is expected to generate significant interest from the domestic private and institutional development market.”
Large numbers of Asian developers have already made a beeline for the Melbourne CBD and city fringe, with Wizel saying larger groups - especially from Malaysia and Singapore – are now after similarly sited townhouse and apartment projects.
“Offshore developers and local institutional developers are seeing the consistent population growth of Melbourne and adjusting their strategies accordingly,” Wizel said.
Local councils and the state government are also proactively planning for population growth, he said.
The pending sale of Yarraville Gardens follows other big deals in Melbourne, including the sale of the Amcor site ($120 million), the former Age site in the CBD ($75 million) and Nigel Satterley’s acquisition of a major parcel of land in Point Cook ($100 million).
Yarraville Gardens owner Colin DeLutis says interest in the site is strong. “We’ve been approached many times over the past five years, and we think now is the right time for a formal sale campaign.”
While Coles and Woolworths are possible anchor tenants, Delutis said a major supermarket had not been decided yet. However, he confirmed that his company would develop a shopping centre on the business zoned land with a view to retaining ownership of the centre.
The proposed mixed use residential and business development is south of Francis Street and west of McIvor Reserve. It’s surrounded by 28 hectares of parklands and is close to Yarraville station and the popular Yarraville village.