Newtown $13m business park approved for riverside location

3D artist renders show external and internal views of the Barwon Business Park planned for 45 Riversdale Rd, Newtown. Source: Luda Studios.

Buyers have lined up for the first picks of a $13m business park to built at Newtown.

IDS Developments, the developer behind three of Geelong’s three most significant serviced apartment projects, the R Hotel (previously the Ritz), The Vie and Devlin Apartments, is leading the Barwon Business Park project at 45 Riversdale Rd, Newtown.

Developer Phil Petch said when he lodged a planning application for the project that he expected strong demand for the strata office floorspace, with small businesses looking to upgrade as owner-occupiers from B and C-grade leased office stock.

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Gartland Projects director Michael De Stefano said that expectation had been rewarded, estimating up to 35 per cent of the office tenancies will be snapped up in the early weeks of the campaign.

“We actually have a permit and we’re up and running,” Mr De Stefano said.

3D artist renders show external and internal views of the Barwon Business Park planned for 45 Riversdale Rd, Newtown. Source: Luda Studios.

“That’s been really well received, particularly among owner-occupiers because of a lack of strata office opportunities in Geelong – the market’s been really starved of it.

“We’ve got 25 (units) there and we’ve already sold seven. We’ll get another couple knocked over so I think we’re at 35 per cent.”

The project is expected to be completed in 2025.

Geelong-based Mark Gratwick Architects and Zero C Environmental Architects have collaborated to design the energy efficient office spaces through the use of solar panels, strategically placed screens, eaves and shading devices and double glazed low E glazing.

3D artist renders show external and internal views of the Barwon Business Park planned for 45 Riversdale Rd, Newtown. Source: Luda Studios.

The buildings will also reference the woollen mills surviving along the Barwon River’s north bank, with external red-brick faced cladding, combined with rendered precast concrete, burnished copper panels and perforated galvanised steel.

Offices will have garaging for four vehicles, first-floor open plan office spaces with full bathroom and kitchenette facilities and balconies, and additional office floors, including terraces on the three-storey buildings.

3D artist renders show external and internal views of the Barwon Business Park planned for 45 Riversdale Rd, Newtown. Source: Luda Studios.

Mr De Stefano said the project would offer more benefits for the businesses owning the individual tenancies, such as depreciation.

“We’ve seen it happen in droves with industrial products but never the opportunities for office projects,” he said.

“It’s a known architect, a known developer who’s been responsible for the Devlin, the Ritz and Vue Apartments, so that’s testament to what he can deliver as a product.

3D artist renders show external and internal views of the Barwon Business Park planned for 45 Riversdale Rd, Newtown. Source: Luda Studios.

“And it’s why as owner occupiers you’ve got so much more levers at your disposal in terms of taxation and depreciation and flexibility in terms of what you can do there.

“A 10 per cent deposit and by the time mid-2025 comes along, you would have made money in my opinion.

“It’s well expected that rates will start coming down in the back end of next year, so we would expect that property prices would start escalating again.

“So whatever you’re doing now, you’re don’t take the risk of an up-shift in development costs.”