Oxford offers up Sydney CBD tower for $310m
Canada’s Oxford Property Group, via its Oxford Investa Property Partnership, is stepping up its asset sale program to around $3 billion with the offer of a major tower in Sydney’s O’Connell St for about $310 million.
The group has already sold about $2.6 billion worth of assets out of the Investa Office Fund portfolio and is looking to cash in on the demand of developers for major CBD sites.
Oxford took the $4.4 billion IOF portfolio private last year and has since ridden the wave of local and international capital keen to buy into Australian cities to sell off key assets.
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In a series of sales handled by Cushman & Wakefield at a portfolio level, and Savills on the 6-10 O’Connell St asset, the group has sold off key towers to back new developments, including two towers above the planned Pitt Street metro station.
The B-grade tower spans about 16,317sqm and major tenants include GCKW, Farrar & Wybenga, AT&T and Villridge.
The 14,596sqm office space is occupied by more than 40 tenants and the building also houses Restaurant Hubert and Balcon by Tapavino.
But one of the key attractions of the 1970 tower is the potential for a future redevelopment of the 26-storey office tower due to its prime location in a reinvigorated precinct.
It also offers harbour views and major Sydney development sites are scarce with the offer pitched as the last site available for a play in Sydney’s core office precinct.
Others have already been snapped up, with developer Lendlease assembling a Sydney site bounded by Spring and O’Connell streets with plans for a 295m tower.
Dexus has assembled another site on a block just back from Circular Quay that is bound by Bridge, Gresham and Spring streets and is tipped to lodge plans shortly.
Singapore-based SC Capital is also pre-selling its planned $700 million mixed-use hotel and office tower in the heart of Sydney.
The hospitality-anchored project at 4-6 Bligh St was approved last month and will soar 59 storeys and be the first new five-star hotel in the city’s core precinct for more than two decades.
This article originally appeared on www.theaustralian.com.au/property.
