Former AFL star’s company targets Como Centre

The group is emerging as one of the city’s most active buyers of iconic properties with a repositioning bent and last September secured Melbourne’s Jam Factory for about $165 million.

Newmark Capital bought that property from financial services company Challenger and it is now targeting the Como Centre, which is being sold by Mirvac Group.

The listed group had been tipped to pocket more than $200 million from selling the Como Centre as it focuses on developing larger office and residential projects. Mirvac came close to selling it for $150 million two years ago when a sale to Melbourne developer Fridcorp was in prospect.

Mirvac and agents Colliers International and McVay Real Estate declined to comment yesterday. But they have billed the centre as one of the key aspects of Melbourne’s fashion precinct and property executives say that Newmark Capital has the expertise to reposition it as one of Australia’s finest mixed-use complexes.

The Como Centre features 6600sqm of retail space.

Property executives yesterday noted Langford’s skills in property development and gave the firm the capacity to add further value to the complex.

Occupying a two-hectare site with more than 300m of street frontage to Chapel St, Toorak Rd and River St, the property generates more than $14 million of net income from more than 25,000sqm of office space, 6600sqm of retail space, as well as a 113-room luxury hotel that is operated by Accor on a lease expiring in June 2021, with a five-year option.

The centre also sports a car park for 614 vehicles but the income is underpinned by the office component, which accounts for about 60% of revenue.

Office tenants include Channel Ten at 620 Chapel St, while 650 Chapel St has been repositioned and houses advertising agency Clemenger, which has been in the building since 2013.

Wilson Parking operates a 614-bay car park at the Como Centre.

The Jam Factory is best known as a retail and cinema complex, but a scheme by Newmark Capital could see the development of a luxury apartment tower, with income still flowing from the retail complex.

That Chapel St property was also earmarked for sale for some years and has long been flagged for an overhaul. Challenger unveiled a $700 million scheme to revamp the South Yarra icon in 2008 before it was marketed in 2009.

Newmark Capital, founded in 2011, also has funds that own retail property in the Melbourne suburb of Chadstone, an office tower in the city’s leafy St Kilda Road, as well as a hardware property trust.

This article originally appeared on www.theaustralian.com.au/property.