Greenfield Conversion Tipped for Cranbourne Golf Course

An expressions-of-interest campaign for a golf course in Melbourne’s south-east has just closed as developers explore left-of-centre ideas for housing sites.

The Cranbourne Golf Course, about 43km from the city centre, is being sold via the campaign that ended on Tuesday, March 26.

Price expectations have been floated of more than $150 million.

The 70.4ha site on Glasscocks and Huon Park roads holds residential zoning and has the potential for 1300 houses on its indicative net developable area of about 53 hectares.

LAWD’s Peter Sagar, Darcy Tobin and Paul Callanan are running the campaign.

The course dates to 1954 when Sydney Kaufman, Harold Lasky and Harry Cohen bought 300ha of land and raised funds within the Jewish community to build the club and its facilities.

At the time Jewish people were barred from other courses.

In 2022, the Cranbourne Golf Club reached a merger agreement with the Huntingdale Golf Club at Oakleigh worth $120 million.

Huntingdale agreed to take on members from Cranbourne in exchange for $10 million to pay for much-needed course renovations.

▲ The course could be reworked to accommodate 1300 homes.

As greenfield sites become more rare and further from city centres, developer have been looking at alternative, including redeveloping golf courses, golf driving ranges and even tennis courts.

In Queensland,  a driving range on the Sunshine Coast would become a 1200-home development under plans filed by RM Developments.

It acquired the site in 2021 for about $6.8 million, according to CoreLogic data, and has managed the 4.19ha driving range since then. 

The developer wants to subdivide the driving range into 12 large land parcels with a masterplanned precinct earmarked for Australia’s first university town. 

Meanwhile, on the Gold Coast, plans are afoot to convert tennis courts to a three-home development.

Sherpa Property Group has filed plans for the 915sq m site, part of a 1980s-era, 14-storey former timeshare resort fronting the Broadwater at Labrador.

Planned is a trio of freehold two-storey homes each comprising three to four bedrooms and with private swimming pools.