Ryman makes $350m retirement village play in Coburg North

Ryman Healthcare has a rapidly-growing presence in the Victorian market, with seven operational villages and another seven in its development pipeline.

New Zealand-listed Ryman Healthcare has snapped up a major development site in Melbourne’s Coburg North to build a $350m retirement ­village.

Ryman bought the site for $48.2m from a group of local investors and is looking to capitalise on demand for sites from both retirement and residential developers.

The company will overhaul a 2.56ha site at 14-22 Gaffney St into an integrated retirement village combining modern independent living apartments and a full aged- care centre.

It will include specialist dementia care on the site.

The village will also include a cafe, bar, gym, cinema, indoor pool, and hair and beauty salons. It will create more than 130 long-term jobs for the area as well as work for hundreds of tradies and contractors during its construction phase.

Sitting less than 10km from Melbourne’s CBD, the Coburg North site is next to Batman train station, just 50m from a tram stop, and only a short walk to Pentridge Shopping Centre.

Melbourne Acquisitions’ James Latos and Dominic Gibson brokered the sale, while Colliers’ Hamish Burgess and Joe Kairouz advised Ryman.

The Ryman development will include the provision of new commercial space along Gaffney St, adding the potential for retail, hospitality and health service operators within the retirement village precinct.

Ryman Australia chief executive Cameron Holland said the village proposed for Coburg North would offer residents a bustling city lifestyle surrounded by restaurants, cafes, and public transport options right on their doorstep.

“What we know at Ryman is that retiring doesn’t mean slowing down,” Mr Holland said.

“We build village communities where people want to live, and this is an area where people very much want to live,” he said.

Ryman Healthcare has a rapidly-growing presence in the Victorian market, with seven operational villages and another seven in its development pipeline.

“Since opening our first village in Melbourne in 2014 we’ve seen an extremely strong appetite for high-quality retirement living communities that also offer aged care on site,” Mr Holland said.

He said the purchase of the Coburg North site was fuelled by strong demand for the model Ryman has brought to the Victorian market from NZ, where it has been operating for almost 40 years.

Since opening its first Australian village in Melbourne eight years ago, Ryman has invested more than $1.2bn in Victoria.

Its villages house 900 residents in Australia.