Little Bay site set to sell for big $280m
Malaysia’s TA Global Bhd has put the 11ha Little Bay Cove waterfront development site in Sydney’s eastern suburbs on the block with the property tipped to sell for more than $280 million.
The company’s move will be a major test for the Sydney residential market due to its scale, with few such sites selling each year.
Wide interest is tipped from local groups keen to expand their workbooks, even as regulators and lenders crack down on the sector, as it could have an end value of more than $700 million.
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Groups including Japan’s Sekisui House, which outlaid $360 million for a precinct-sized block in Sydney’s Wentworth Point last year, and local players like CBus Property, which is planning about 800 units at the Newmarket site in Randwick it bought from the Inglis family for more than $200 million in 2015, are likely to chase the property.
The sale is being handled by Knight Frank’s Tim Holtsbaum and Eugene Evgenikos and JLL’s Ben Hunter and Sam Brewer.
Little Bay Cove spans more than 11ha of land, civil works are complete and it carries masterplan development consent, allowing for work to start immediately.
This is a unique opportunity to acquire a high-end development site in a prime, coastal eastern suburbs location
The Malaysian developer says last year that Little Bay Cove comprised 582 houses and apartments and it then envisaged developing the project over the next seven years.
The first 45-unit luxury apartments were fully sold and slated to be complete last year. Another residential development named Illume, comprising 179 residential apartments over three blocks of five-storey buildings, was launched in mid-2015 and building began last year.
Little Bay Cove’s first terrace houses development comprising 66 town houses was launched in late 2015 and the company said demand was strong.
TA Global got involved with the project in 2010, entering into a 50:50 development deal with property funds house Charter Hall Group. The venture was through the unlisted Charter Hall Opportunity Fund No 5 but the Australian manager sold its stake in the project in Sydney’s southeast to TA Global for $97.8 million in late 2013.
Holtsbaum says the site is one of the last eastern suburbs coastal subdivisions available for development.
“This is a unique opportunity to acquire a high-end development site in a prime, coastal eastern suburbs location,” he said.
Brewer says that not only had there not been stock of this scale offered for a long time, but the masterplan approval would appeal to developers.
The agents says there was scope to add value to the site by increasing the number of dwellings achievable on site and the area would benefit from the NSW government’s CBD and South East Light Rail project.
This article originally appeared on www.theaustralian.com.au/property.
