Amalgamated CBD buildings offer substantial rewards upon sale

A significant corner-site in Melbourne’s tightly held CBD has been sold to Chinese-backed developer, Longriver for $26 million.

The large 760sqm site, known as Queens Collection, sits on the corner of Queen and Little Lonsdale Streets in Melbourne’s legal precinct and is comprised of two mixed-use commercial buildings of six and four storeys respectively.

Development director for Longriver, Damien Hehir, said that the two buildings represented an "important and strategic CBD corner site" at the northern end of the city.

"The site affords the opportunity for a mixed-use development to add to Longriver's $1 billion-plus project pipeline.

"We are optimistic about Melbourne's CBD property market and believe that there is a strong market for mixed-use developments with a multi-level retail and food and beverage offering."

The site was previously held by prominent criminal lawyer Alex Lewenberg who previously purchased the buildings separately, one in 1995 for $770,000 and the other in 2002 for $1.8 million (total combined of $2.57 million).

"It was time for us to move on and we couldn't be more pleased with the result achieved. We wish the new owners well," Mr Lewenberg said.

The sale was brokered by CBRE’s Josh Rutman, Mark Wizel, Lewis Tong and Alex Brierley.

Mr Rutman commented on the nature of the sale stating that the “transaction highlights that buyers are taking a longer-term view on the Melbourne CBD market, and whilst there are some clear challenges at present for high density development, the fundamentals remain strong when you consider the growth in daily population, office vacancy rates and tourism growth.

“Private and institutional developers continue to seek CBD sites, particularly those capable of amalgamation into a larger land holding that would be better suited for the current planning regime.”