News & Media
Up, up and away
11 April, 2025
As featured in The Age – Cap Gain
Local investor developer Up Property has stepped out of the suburbs and scored a CBD office building for a price believed to be around $45 million.
The 16-level tower at 50 Queen Street was sold by Swiss fund manager ST Real Estate which had paid $40.7 million in 2014. The Swiss optimistically listed it for sale for $80 million in 2022 just as the office market was tanking but might consider themselves lucky to have scored any profit at all.
There were 11 bidders for the property and two unconditional offers, according to Cushman & Wakefield agent Daniel Wolman, who worked on the deal with Oliver Hay, Leon Ma and Teska Carson’s Ion Teska, Matt Feld and Adrian Boutsakis. They declined to comment on the price.
“We witnessed nine strong bids from local buyers with two offshore investors throwing some tough competition into the mix,” Wolman said. The 9156 sq m building is on a 917 sq m site on the corner of Flinders Lane. It’s about 73 per cent leased.
Up Property has a $500 million pipeline of projects in the suburbs. It recently finished Morris Moor, a redevelopment of the old Philip Morris factory in Moorabbin and last year purchased 836 Mountain Highway, Bayswater for $17.65 million.
Aspects of the unconditional deal indicate the market could be improving, not least because local investors, lured by cheap city stock, have emerged looking for bargains.
While the price was nearly half what was asked in 2022, the deal landed within this year’s $45-50 million quoted range rather than the gut-wrenching falls suffered by other office deals.