Joint Venture Targets $800m Land-Lease Pipeline

Investment firms GreenFort Capital and Gaw Capital Partners has revealed joint-venture plans to acquire and develop an $800-million pipeline of over 50s land-lease-community projects.

Alternative real estate fund manager GreenFort and real estate private equity firm Gaw have partnered up to accelerates GreenFort’s plans to scale its new Liven Communities business to an initial platform of 1200 land-lease homes along the east coast.

GreenFort executives Adam Vaggelas, Nick Singleton, and Daniel Cheilyk set up the Liven Communities land-lease business last year and have since acquired a 57,000 sq m site at Hervey Bay, pictured above, in Queensland.

The site holds approval for 132 homes and resort-style community facilities, including residents lounge and bar, gymnasium, cinema, outdoor barbecue areas, pool, tennis and pickleball courts.

The group has also bought Willow Village in Southside, near Gympie—an existing 26-home community on a 25,000sq m site—along with an adjacent 75,000sq m parcel of land with development approval in place for a further 150 homes and extensive recreational and community facilities.

Vaggelas said Australia’s rapidly ageing population, lack of housing supply, and deteriorating housing affordability represented a significant opportunity.

“The domestic population base is ageing rapidly and the provision of affordable housing supply has never been so constrained,” Vaggelas said.

“We see a compelling opportunity to deliver quality, well-located land-lease accommodation which will assist senior Australians to downsize and release equity to fund their retirement.”

The GreenFort and Gaw Capital joint venture is the second for the investment partners after they joined forces on the Reside Communities retirement living platform in 2018.

Since then, the Reside development and operating portfolio has grown to more than 1000 homes with a gross value of about $1 billion.

▲ The Soda Factory in Brisbane’s West End is anchored by a Coles supermarket.

West End’s Soda Factory sold

Meanwhile, the Soda Factory in Brisbane’s West End has changed hands for $42 million in an off-market deal to a high-net-worth private investor.

The retail asset at the corner of Boundary and Mollison streets was the subject of a major adaptive reuse project initiated in 2020.

Formerly the home of Tristram’s soft drinks, established about a century ago, it is anchored by a Coles supermarket and supported by 21 retailers with a focus on food and beverage and allied health retailers.

It is about 1.5km from the Brisbane CBD on a 1ha site and, according to selling agents CBRE, is the closest neighbourhood shopping centre to the CBD sold in the past five years. 

The Soda Factory was offloaded by the listed Region Group in a deal representing a premium to book value, according to CBRE.

CBRE’s Joe Tynan and Michael Hedger negotiated the sale.

Tynan said, “We have been working with this investor for some time and identified the Soda Factory as a target asset. Through a direct approach to the vendor, we were able to negotiate and achieve a strong result” 

The buyer, an awarded commercial and residential group, was highly active in the market and had a deep connection to the West End precinct, CBRE said.