Wentworth Place joins $1bn rush of Parramatta stock
More than $1 billion worth of towers in the western Sydney hub of Parramatta are in play with Charter Hall Direct’s PFA Fund to become the latest seller by putting Wentworth Place on the block.
The company has tapped CBRE and Knight Frank to sell the A-grade tower that was overhauled in 2006 and is well-positioned as values in the area take off.
The 7698sqm building has ground level retail and six upper levels of office space and basement parking for 87 cars.
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Tenants include the federal government and the Australian Business Academy.
Centuria Capital-run fund is already selling 2 Wentworth St for about $95 million via Cushman and CI Australia. That 13 level A-drade office building is on a significant corner site of 2339sqm and spans about 10,940sqm of space.
The tower has a 6.2-year weighted average lease term with 93% of the income derived from NSW government tenants
The offers come as Singapore-listed company Raffles Education Corporation sold its Parramatta office block. Raffles will exit Australia by selling 1-3 Fitzwilliam St to a trust run by private Asian company Wentruth for $80 million. Raffles reaped a substantial uplift on the sale as it picked up the building for $29m in 2014.
The building, now occupied by an ECA and Swinburne University of Technology venture, and Parramatta council, is also benefiting from rising interest from education groups in the area with Western Sydney University and UNSW Sydney also developing an engineering innovation hub in the city.
Raffles sold the property via Cushman & Wakefield’s Steven Kearney and Mark Hansen and Colliers International’s John McCann on a yield of about 5%.
The city’s southern gateway precinct is undergoing a reformation with a series of buildings changing hands.
A Valentine Street tower owned by an Australian Unity-run trust that is being taken over by Charter Hall and Abacus and could also sustain a new tower.
A Chinese group last month bought the office block at 80 George Street Parramatta for about $82m. The vendor, Diamond Genest, had bought the complex in late 2016 for $51.9 million from a GDI-run fund,
Singaporean wealth fund GIC last month picked up the Jessie Street Centre, in league with property funds group Charter Hall, from Canadian group Brookfield for about $420 million.
This article originally appeared on www.theaustralian.com.au/property.
