Developer Gurner and Geelong property identity Dean Montgomery have teamed up to develop a former wool store near the Geelong waterfront into a $300 million mixed-use precinct.
The woolsheds site is located at 20 – 28 Brougham Street and comprised a 2,100 sqm parcel of land situated 300 metres from the Geelong waterfront.
The site has an existing permit for a 12-storey commercial building yielding about 26,000 sqm of gross floor area.
The partnership will lodge an amendment to the permit later this year in a bid to develop a sustainable precinct with a hotel, residential apartments, an activated ground plane and urban gardens.
The new plan for the development will include restoring the heritage façade and the creation of a ground-floor food and beverage precinct linking the new council offices to the nearby university by foot.
It will also feature a 5-star hotel component and luxury residences in the upper levels, along with a carbon neutral target.
The deal marks Gurner’s entry into the Geelong market.
“Geelong has always been Victoria’s quiet achiever, but now with the renewed regional push as many families consider regional locations, I believe Geelong’s market run hasn’t really even begun yet,” Tim Gurner said.
“Buyers are reassessing their lifestyle choices and are looking for affordable locations close to beaches with easy accessibility into the CBD, and Geelong ticks all those boxes and more.
“Regional tourism is set to flourish in the next few years, as holiday preferences change and regional destination such as Geelong continue to grow in popularity – the opening of new attractions, like the Spirit of Tasmania terminal in Geelong, will further drive this activity.
“We acquired the site with Dean with the intention to create a residential, commercial and hotel precinct and it is our intention to bring that to life, however if the planning changes make that difficult, we will proceed with the existing office scheme.”
Last month, Gurner teamed up with MaxCap Group to purchase a development site on the Gold Coast with ambitions to build a $120 million apartment tower.
The 1,012 sqm site was located at 1929 Gold Coast Highway, Burleigh Heads and was expected to feature a 22-storey tower with 80 residences and rooftop amenity.
Recent development deals include developer Time & Place and Corsair Investment Management buying a site in Alphington, Melbourne for about $48 million to develop a $500 million mixed-use precinct last week.
Last week, Neometro acquired a recreation centre in Melbourne’s inner-city suburb of St Kilda East for $21.8 million this week, while ID_Land’s purchased three parcels of land spanning 59 hectares in the southeast Melbourne suburb of Clyde for $140 million.
Make Ventures bought a Toyota dealership site in Preston in Melbourne’s north for $40 million with plans to develop a build-to-rent (BTR) property last month, as Altis Property Partners and Aware Super acquired a commercial building in Preston for $14.04 million with their own plans to also develop a BTR property.
Outside of Victoria, Stockland and Western Sydney University announced plans to develop a 99-hectare site at the university’s Penrith campus into a mixed-use precinct, while Stockland and Japanese homebuilder Sekisui House teamed up to boost new housing in growth areas in the southwest and northwest of Sydney.
