Lawyers win battle for prime Collingwood site

A pair of Melbourne lawyers trumped developers and investors amid a white-hot market for development sites to secure a Collingwood corner block that will eventually become their firm’s new home.

The lawyers paid $1.775 million at auction for the property on the corner of Johnston and Gold streets, marking the first time the tightly-held building has been sold in almost 40 years.

The price equated to more than $7000 per square metre for the 252sqm site, which is currently leased on a month-to-month basis to Image Melbourne.

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Nelson Alexander agent Damien Theisz, who listed the property, says the lawyers plan to eventually redevelop the site to create a new base for their firm, as well as additional office space for other tenants.

Theisz says he received more than 140 enquiries about the property, with inner city Collingwood, Fitzroy and Abbotsford currently experiencing an extreme shortage of potential development sites.

“It was the first time it had been offered in 38 years. That sort of property doesn’t come up all the time,” he says.

The Collingwood site has three street frontages.

“Two young guys who are lawyers are going to redevelop it and move in there down the track. They’ll leave the current tenant in there for a while and then … redevelop it for their own offices and also some additional office space.”

Theisz says the site, which has three street frontages, sits in an area that has been flagged as potentially being rezoned by Yarra Council to allow more commercial uses.

The price was the highest achieved per square metre in the area in recent memory, Theisz says, as buyers battle for very limited stock.

“I sold one mid-last year in Clifton Hill that was fairly comparable, and that was $5500 per square metre. There was one sold in Langridge St in Collingwood that went for $6500 per square metre just before Christmas. ”

“There’s plenty of buyers out there and not enough stock. Getting your hands on stock is the difficulty at the moment.”