Major island landholding in Melbourne’s Biomedical Precinct comes to market after 21 years of ownership

An unprecedented 6,526sqm landholding with four extensive street frontages in North Melbourne has come to market, with a Mixed-Use zoning providing scope for a wide range of uses including residential apartments, build-to-rent, student accommodation, medical, healthcare and education uses, amongst others.

JLL agents Josh Rutman, Jesse Radisich, Noral Wild and MingXuan Li have been exclusively appointed to sell 23-47 Villiers Street, North Melbourne via an Expressions-Of-Interest campaign on behalf of the Australian Red Cross, with Tom Byrnes & Patrick McNulty of Charter Keck Cramer acting as Transaction Advisor.

The North Melbourne property has come to the market following an extensive internal review of the Australian Red Cross’s longer term operational requirements.

An ARC spokesperson said, “This is part of a property masterplan to ensure we can invest in our future property footprint which will be suitable for how we deliver services to the community and the changing way our volunteers, staff and members work with us.”

The Mixed Use Zoned site benefits from extensive frontages to Villiers Street, Harcourt Street, Mary Street and Little George Street. It is positioned within the Parkville National Employment and Innovation Cluster, within close walking distance to the Royal Melbourne Hospital, the Royal Women’s Hospital, the Victorian Comprehensive Cancer Centre and the University of Melbourne.

Mr Rutman said, “This site is firmly entrenched within what is undoubtedly Melbourne’s most strategic and important locations that is being supported by billions of dollars of investment from both the private and public sector”.

“Underpinned by the under-construction Parkville Train Station which forms part of the Metro Tunnel project, and the strong transport infrastructure that is driven by a strong workforce and education demographics from the University of Melbourne, this precinct is becoming a key focus for a wide range of businesses and organisations”.

The precinct is home to 49,000 employees and 7,000 medical/healthcare students, creating a very robust employment and resident base.

Mr Radisich said, “Melbourne’s strong fundamentals including population, employment and GDP growth are forecast to recover strongly. This coupled with the $2.8billion of capital injected into research and healthcare facilities over the last decade within the Melbourne Biomedical Precinct has positioned the precinct for long-term success and created a world-class innovation precinct”.

According to JLL, the site will hold significant appeal to a wide range of buyer segments with development potential supporting circa 35,000 sq.m. + of GFA across a variety of uses, providing a very rare opportunity of significant scale in such a strategic CBD-fringe location.