Aware Splashes $600m on Industrial Park

Aware Super’s real estate arm has splashed $600 million on a 99ha industrial estate north of Melbourne, which could be the biggest single industrial acquisition in about 15 years. 

Aware Real Estate would manage the site with global investment partner Barings.

Aware Real Estate already owns Austrak Business Park’s $400-million Somerton Intermodal Terminal (SIT)—Australia’s largest intermodal freight terminal, which is due for completion next year.

The industrial hub is also home to major game players such as Coles, Bunnings, QUBE, Kraft and Boral and in a strategic location, 20km from Melbourne CBD and Tullamarine Airport.

And, it will be 20km south of the Victorian stretch of the 1600km Inland Rail project.

Work on the 262km Albury-to-Beveridge section of the “fast freight backbone” between South Australia, Victoria, NSW and Queensland is under way with completion expected in 2027.

Aware Real Estate’s and Barings’ joint-venture purchase of Austrak Business Park follows that of the 50/50 ownership of the hub between GPT Group and Austrak FM.

In September 2022, Barings also bought Altis Property Partners—a company that helped develop Aware Real Estate’s portfolio.

Aware Real Estate chief executive Michelle McNally described the Austrak Business Park purchase as a significant milestone for the $6-billion company’s strategic growth into the industrial sector with the group also developing The Yards and First Estate industrial hubs in Sydney.

Aware Real Estate and Barings have created a masterplan for the business park with the aim of giving new tenants stronger value propositions, with the added attraction of the SIT site.

McNally said SIT would create an “uptick in demand” for the park when it opens with the intermodal terminal accommodating up to 1 million TEUs (twenty-foot equivalent units).

The terminal is also expected to take about 500,000 truck trips off Melbourne roads every year.

The SIT is managed by the Intermodal Terminal Company, an Aware Super investment platform launched in September 2022, which targets the acquisition, construction and operation of an independent network of intermodal terminals.