50 Queen Street, Melbourne office tower sold
With all the attention on Chinese Melbourne CBD development site acquisitions, one of the low-key Melbourne CBD sales this year has been the office block, 50 Queen Street.
Last sold in 2007 at $31 million, it has been sold at $40.7 million by Centuria Property Funds Limited.
Coweley Queen Pty Ltd, a subsidiary of the foreign based company Coweley Limited, purchased the property.
Coweley Limited is directed by Sydney locals, Klaus Knoblauch and Craig Stuckey, in conjunction with the Roquebrune Cap Martin, France based, but Paddington, Sydney born director Peter Ranger and the Switzerland based Massimo Pedrazzini.
The property was part of the Becton Office Fund No. 2 which Centuria took over in September 2010, at which time the property valuation was $26.5 million.
The off market sale price was 25% in excess of the latest 31 December 2013 independent valuation.
Its 2007 sale was marketed as a 16-level, 34 year old B-grade building.
The building, at the corner of Flinders Lane, is about 9650 square metres and is occupied by several small tenancies.
Set at the corner of Flinders Lane, it was offloaded in 2007 by Singaporean investor George Chow, who paid $13.4 million in October 1991.
Back in the late 1980s when on the books of the Capita Prime Property Fund (formerly the City Mutual Property Trust), the office block had a $22 million valuation.
Centuria Property Funds latest sale was an office tower in St Kilda Road to the property arm of the Dymocks group for $82.1 million.
Centuria acquired 441 St Kilda Road in 2012 for $58 million on a single investor mandate.