Charter Hall snaps up Collins Place in $65 million deal
The retail and eatery atrium at Collins Place. Image credit: Collins Place
Charter Hall has quietly secured the freehold to Collins Place, one of Melbourne’s most prestigious addresses at the Paris end of Collins Street.
The world-class office, entertainment, and hotel precinct first opened in 1981. It includes approximately 140,000m² of floor space across two towers, including the Sofitel Hotel.
It also enjoys 470 metres of premium street frontages to Collins and Exhibition Streets and Flinders Lane. AMP Wholesale Office Fund will retain the leasehold.
Charter Hall is expected to redevelop parts of the site to increase its value. Managing Director and Group CEO David Harrison, said, “Collins Place presents a unique opportunity for CPOF investors to secure one of the largest, freehold title, prime CBD sites nationally… we believe Collins Place is significantly under-utilised compared to nearby precincts, such as 80 Collins Street, which secured approval to develop an additional tower to complement the 50-storey Nauru House, to create a 20:1 plus plot ratio.”
Collins Place is a popular meeting spot and houses several eateries and a Kino Cinema inside its immense, undercover atrium. Well-known restaurant Pope Joan famously relocated to the site after its Brunswick East location was permanently closed in 2018 to make way for an apartment development.
The announcement follows another significant move by Charter Hall earlier this month, when the company sold a 50 percent interest in 555 Collins Street to Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund GIC, following FIRB approval.
That site has received planning approval for an 84,000m² state-of-the-art twin office tower precinct, with a project value of $1.5 billion.
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