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Child’s play
A local private investor has snapped up a Brighton childcare centre, paying $17.5 million in the second-biggest deal of the past 12 months.
The centre at 46 Dendy Street is leased to ASX-listed G8 Education and trades under the Learning Sanctuary brand.
The childcare centre at 46 Dendy Street, Brighton sold for $17.5 million.
The 2389-square metre centre has 171 places and returns $910,047 a year. It last traded in 2015 for $4.45 million but was redeveloped in 2019.
Higher interest rates softened the deal’s yield to 5.19 per cent, a relatively soft return compared with the sale in May last year of an Armadale centre, which fetched $20.5 million on a 4.64 per cent yield.
CBRE agents Sandro Peluso, Jimmy Tat and Marcello Caspani-Muto managed the expressions of interest campaign.
“Private capital is leading the way by notable margins in most of our transactions between $15 million and $50 million. For this transaction, we saw an increase in interest from Singapore and Taiwan. While the purchaser was local, both underbidders were international groups,” Tat said.
Meanwhile, an older childcare centre at 263-265 Centre Road, Bentleigh is hitting the market for the first time in 25 years.
On a 1545-square metre site close to Bentleigh’s main trading hub, the centre’s lease includes a redevelopment clause that can be activated after its initial 10-year term.
New Zealand-listed childcare group, Evolve Early Learning, pays $366,352 a year for the 93-place centre, which trades as Roseberry House.
Chris Kombi, Tom Fisher and Ben Liu, from commercial agency Fitzroys, are marketing the property as a land banking proposition.
Essendon Fields
Zagame Automotive is about to join the car dealership precinct at Essendon Fields.
Prominent car dealer Zagame Automotive is making its first foray into the massive Essendon Fields dealership precinct.
Zagame will open two new showrooms – for Audi and CUPRA – at the business park owned and developed by Lindsay Fox and Max Beck.
Essendon Fields Auto now has 20 dealerships covering 140,000 square metres of space on 24 hectares of land. Last year, the precinct sold more than 21,000 cars with a combined estimated value of nearly $1 billion.
The 1400-square metre Audi and CUPRA showrooms also come with a 2400-square metre servicing garage. All showroom and service areas will cater for electric vehicles and include onsite fast charging stations.
They’re expected to be completed in early 2025.
Zagame Automotive, which occupies nearly a whole block of Swan Street, Richmond as well as dealerships in North Melbourne, Brighton and Mornington, is making its first move into the western suburbs with the Essendon Fields deal.
Other recent developments at Essendon Fields include a soon-to-open pre-owned prestige showroom for Dutton One, a new Porsche training centre and a Volvo dealership that opened in 2022.
Toorak Cellars
Armadale wine bar Toorak Cellars has changed hands on a slim 2.4 per cent yield in an off-market deal struck shortly before Christmas.
A private investor snapped up the bar at 18 Beatty Avenue by paying $3.76 million. The tiny shopping strip next to Toorak train station has zero vacancy.
Records show the vendor was Third Street developer David Joachim, whose family has sold a large portfolio of shops in Melbourne’s eastern suburbs over the past couple of years.
Stonebridge Property Group agents Nic Hage, Rorey James and Sarah Xi negotiated the deal.
“We saw a private group outbid two buyers sourced through our Asia practice team. For the two underbidders, it was their first foray into commercial real estate,” Xi said.
Also in Toorak, Brendan Sullivan’s art deco building at 428 Toorak Road is understood to have sold for less than $10 million to a local private investor.
Flipping sites
Records show Joachim is also selling a development site on Wattletree Road opposite Cabrini Hospital in Malvern.
The property at 204-208 Wattletree Road is on a 2453-square metre piece of land and comes with a permit for 18 apartments over four floors designed by Carr Architects.
Records show the site, which last traded between Joachim family members in 2019, sold on the open market in 2013 for $4.05 million.
The vacant site at 290-294 Punt Road, South Yarra.
There is a 1920s-era four-bedroom house with a tennis court on the site.
Cushman & Wakefield agents Daniel Wolman, Joe Kairouz and Leon Ma are handling inquiries. The property is expected to sell for $13-14 million.
In South Yarra, a cleared site which was once a 7-Eleven-owned service station at 290-294 Punt Road, is also for sale just a few years after it last changed hands.
The 1525-square metre site was most recently sold in 2021 by the Withers family, the founders of the 7-Eleven chain. Records show the site sold for $3.97 million, and it is now expected to fetch between $5-6 million. It’s around the corner from The Alfred hospital’s busy medical precinct.
Cushman & Wakefield’s Wolman, Karim Ford, Hamish Burgess and George Davies are managing the campaign.
Meanwhile, north of the river, in Collingwood’s new office hotspot, the Singaporean-based owners of the Metz Tile Showroom at 106-120 Gipps Street have re-listed the 1538-square metre development site.
The showroom at 106-120 Gipps Street, Collingwood is back on the market.
The two-storey showroom last changed hands in 2020 for $13 million and a similar price is expected this time around.
CBRE agents David Minty, Nathan Mufalie, Scott Hawthorne and Jing Jun Heng are handling inquiries.
With Najma Sambul
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