Residential, office on the cards for South Geelong super site

More residential development is on the cards for South Geelong as buyers eye the possibilities of a mixed use site now on the market.

Two owners holding separate properties in the suburb’s commercial precinct have combined their interests to create a 1506sq m site with two street frontages at 112-118 Fyans Street and 1 Victoria Street.

Price hopes for the combined properties is more than $3 million. Offers close August 14.

Maxwell Collins, Geelong agent Don Hough says the properties straddle several titles and four separate tenancies.

But being on a corner site, buyers are looking at the long-term implications that development options provided.

112-118 Fyans St and 1 Victoria St, South Geelong, are on the market.

Geelong’s council rezoned the whole block from Industrial 1 to Mixed Use in the past decade under a plan to encourage more residential development near the north bank of the Barwon River, leaving options for buyers to explore commercial and office use, with potential for residential apartments above ground floor.

A draft South Geelong Urban Design Framework, which excluded this section of the suburb from the study area, proposed allowing redevelopment around the train station and along Moorabool Street between the railway and Fyans Street to include residential and commercial buildings up to seven storeys high.

Hough says he is quoting around $2.5 million for the Fyans Street building, plus around $550,000 for the separate complex in Victoria Street.

112-118 Fyans St and 1 Victoria St, South Geelong, are on the market.

Three of the four tenancies were currently occupied, provided investors with a significant holding income while they planned their next move, Hough says.

“We’re keen to sell the whole lot as a redevelopment site,” he says.

“As a corner site, it’s a great location where the zoning allows for a redevelopment, focus on residential upstairs, commercial downstairs.

“It’s a long-term project that will do very well,” Hough says.

112-118 Fyans St and 1 Victoria St, South Geelong, are on the market.

The properties neighbour the Valley Inn hotel and are walking distance to Little Creatures’ Swanston St brewery and the South Geelong train station.

South Geelong has become a busy enclave, with several residential development projects leveraging the locality, near the train station, one of the city’s busiest commuter hubs.

A multi-townhouse development at 259-263 Bellerine Street is under construction, while another project is earmarked for Barwon Water’s former depot just across the railway tracks.

“I think that people have recognised the area of South Geelong, east of Moorabool Street, is a nice little pocket,” he says.

112-118 Fyans St and 1 Victoria St, South Geelong, are on the market.

“It’s very close to South Geelong railway station and arterial roads at either Moorabool St and High St or the Princes Highway.

“With Barwon River very close by, that precinct lends itself to be a good recreational area.”

This article from The Geelong Advertiser originally appeared as “Residential, office potential in South Geelong super site”.