SYDNEY, August 18, 2021 – A large greenfield industrial development site will be brought to market by Colliers’ Gavin Bishop, Sean Thomson and David Hall, alongside CBRE’s Jason Edge, Cameron Grier and Chris O’Brien on behalf of Lesso Mall Developments.
Covering a substantial 21.56ha, Augusta Street presents the unique opportunity to acquire one of the largest remaining industrial zoned greenfield land holdings within the Huntingwood Industrial precinct, widely known as one of Western Sydney’s premier industrial locations. The site has a price expectation of more than $200 million.
Underpinned by its superior scale, the site benefits from a multitude of flexible future development characteristics given its prominent exposure of more than 900 metres to the M4 Motorway and Great Western Highway, with further frontages to Augusta Street and Berith Street.
Demand for industrial land in Sydney continues unabated as institutional groups adopt a build-to-core strategy. Continued yield compression and limited buying opportunities have made it more challenging to acquire stabilised assets, and as a result, major institutions seek scale via greenfield development.
Furthermore, interest in the site from data centre operators is expected as the sector has evolved rapidly in recent years, underpinned by the demand for cloud-based storage services. The recent lockdown period and large-scale work-from-home orders in response to COVID-19 have elevated data centre demand as cloud storage requirements have grown rapidly.
Gavin Bishop, Head of Industrial Capital Markets at Colliers, said: “In response to growing demand levels, there has been a surge in demand from data centre operators seeking greenfield land to facilitate their expansion. Notably, this has been led by the aggressive growth mandates of Microsoft, Digital Realty, and NextDC, who have recently acquired large-scale sites across the country.”
“Despite growing institutional demand for data centres, investment in the sector remains limited given the lack of investable stock and relatively tight regulatory restrictions. As a result, equity investment in the sector has been the dominant method of entering or expanding and includes Macquarie Group’s 88% acquisition of the AirTrunk data centre business earlier in 2020.”
Jason Edge, Senior Director, Industrial Captial Markets at CBRE felt the infill nature of the site would create strong demand from buyers. “ Freehold land east of the M7 of this scale is extremely rare and will appeal to both institutional developers and large corporate occupiers looking to take advantage of the current cost of debt.”
Augusta Street, Huntingwood is being offered for sale via International Expressions of Interest closing 4:00pm (AEST) Thursday, 23rd September 2021.
