Pakenham to be ‘closed out’ after $60m+ sale to developer AVID Property Group
The future development plan for 1 Abrehart Rd, Pakenham.
More than 160 years after its post office opened, the development of Pakenham is about to finish.
A 30.5ha slice of the suburb, the last not already turned into homes or commercial space, has been sold to developers for a sum believed to be in excess of $60m.
The 1 Abrehart Rd property was once part of farmland that fed Melbourne, but is now expected to become about 400 homes that will house more than 1200 people when finished in the next three-five years.
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AVID Property Group agreed terms to buy the site earlier this year and chief executive Cameron Holt said they were looking forward to “closing out the last piece of Pakenham”.
“Normally we get in and develop a project for 3-6 years and finish a new suburb, so it is quite an unusual proposition to see a suburb take that long,” Mr Holt said.
He said the firm planned to devote 10.5ha of the block to open space including parks, playgrounds and a football oval.
With Pakenham now developed, future residents will have immediate access to existing amenities.
Pakenham has changed a lot since this aerial image was taken in 2009.
In 2020 town planners established a new Pakenham East precinct that will replace large chunks of what is currently Nar Nar Goon next door to the original Pakenham suburb.
Biggin & Scott Land’s Andrew Egan confirmed the firm had brokered a deal for the Abrehart Rd property, but would not comment further.
However, industry sources have indicated it sold in excess of $60m.
They also indicated that within the Pakenham boundary the largest properties left would be hobby farms of up to 5000sq m.
A private Melbourne family are understood to be the beneficiaries of the sale, and the land had served only minimal farming use in recent years.
LendLease’s Averley estate masterplan gives an idea of how the Pakenham East precinct’s development will proceed.
Its sale follows a slew of high-priced land deals in Melbourne’s south east, including ID Land splashing $140m on a 59ha development site expected to become 1200 blocks of land in another Biggin & Scott deal brokered in nearby Clyde earlier this year.
A collection of farming properties just across the border into Pakenham East from the Abrehart Rd address were sold to Lendlease early in the pandemic as part of a complex deal expected to be worth up to $130m when it is eventually paid out in about five years time.
Core Projects handled that sale, as well as a more recent Pakenham East sale that transferred a more than 28ha site on the edge of Melbourne’s urban growth boundary to National Pacific Properties for $48.5m last year.
90 Mount Ararat South Road, Nar Nar Goon, sold for $48.5m and will soon be developed.
Core Projects director Kane Malcomson said even the Pakenham East precinct’s land supply was likely to be exhausted within the next 10 years.
“And once that is sold out, there’s no further growth area beyond that at this stage,” Mr Malcomson said.
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