Oscar Ledlin’s $30m Bet on an Asset Class That Does Not Yet Exist

Ledlin Group managing director Oscar Ledlin has spent the past decade pushing industrial property beyond “four walls and a roller door”. On his next two projects, even the roller door is gone. “I’m blurring the line between industrial, commercial and retail,” Ledlin tells The Urban Developer . “These are commercial zonings, not industrial. Our aim is a hybrid property type for businesses that are too operational for traditional retail, but too customer-facing for traditional industrial.” Commercially zoned sites at Croydon and Cheltenham, bought for close to $10 million combined, would deliver 23 and 12 units with an estimated gross realisation value of $30 million on completion. Glass pivot doors would replace roller doors, alongside wider walkways, increased glazing and shared amenity designed for customers as well as occupants. The move goes beyond the industrial estates where the father-and-son business, founded by Oscar and his dad Michael in 2013, made its name by pushing the warehouse upmarket. A prolific entrepreneur, Ledlin has taken his innovative bent beyond property , with his Sustainable Concrete Group turning contaminated waste glass into engineered sand for concrete . Next on his books is a venture converting soft plastics into aggregate. Vermont Inc, a business park 20km east of the Melbourne CBD with a rooftop terrace, boardroom and food and beverage space, had sold out six minutes after launching. In 2021, 45 flexie storage units at Ledlin’s Springvale Business Park sold in four days , but when construction costs later rose about 30 per cent, the company absorbed a $4.5-million hit rather than rescind contracts. ▲ A rendering of one of Ledlin's new projects: It’s a bit more of an audacious facade ... It’ll cost us a little bit more, but we think it’s pretty striking. “I lost a week’s sleep over that decision but ultimately chose what I believed was the right thing to do,” Ledlin says. This time, by his account, there are no sleepless nights because the sites were bought well. “We like to think we don’t overpay, we don’t over-leverage, and we stick to what we know,” Ledlin says. Demand for the new product is coming from Ledlin’s own occupants. E-commerce businesses that filled earlier projects now want a shopfront as online advertising and delivery costs rise. At Vermont Inc, an industrially zoned site, semi-retail tenants already range from home heating to sporting goods and cosmetics—businesses that sell mainly online but want somewhere customers can visit. “We’re still targeting e-commerce businesses, without doubt, but we’re finding they now want some form of retail interface,” he says. Delete Under commercial zoning, those occupants can run warehousing and point-of-sale from one unit, a format Ledlin calls “small, large-format retail”. Currently a Renault and Suzuki dealership, the 3920sq m Croydon site [ rendering of the planned development above ] at 23-29 Hewish Road is less than 100m from a train station and opposite a football oval, extending the main street retail strip. Securing it for $4 million took an unconditional offer, made on the Monday after Ledlin found the site on a Friday. Contracts were exchanged that week. Units there would have 3.6m of height clearance for van and truck deliveries. Some Vermont Inc tenants are already looking to expand into the Croydon development, Ledlin says. At Cheltenham [ rendering below and main image ], the 1583sq m site at 285-287 Bay Road is a vacant 1960s portal frame warehouse opposite Aldi. Twelve units would run down each side of a horseshoe layout. Ledlin plans to move its headquarters into the development. “That’s always well received by the market when we’re marketing a project and letting them know we’ll be there,” he says. The projects pair Ammache with James Harbard Architect, and construction is to be kept in-house with Ledlin Build. Ammache handles how each site functions, while Harbard was brought in for aesthetics that respond to the nearby retail to attract the tenants to activate the ground plane. Delete “Aesthetically, my crayons only take me so far. James had never drawn an industrial facade in his life, but he was someone we really vibed with, and we think the outcome has been really great on both projects,” he says. Ledlin would be closely involved in leasing wherever the company retains units, and would chair the owners corporation committees. Facades would combine off-form concrete and tile at Croydon, while Cheltenham’s curved concrete and suspended planter boxes would draw on a Bayside, “beachy” feel. Architecture, more than advertising, would shape the tenant mix, Ledlin says, with marketing doing perhaps 10 per cent of the work. “It’s the marketing, the architecture, and then the communal amenity that encourages the occupants to meet, interact and get to know each other, which ultimately curates the community,” he says. Sales of the new projects would open to the Ledlin VIP list, which runs on a one-in, one-out basis with buyers limited to one property each. Ledlin has no trouble backing himself. And while buyers snapped up Vermont Inc in minutes, the hybrid has no track record and will have to earn its tenants on its own merits. “Now it’s time to build it and see if they come,” he says.

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Leon Della Bosca
Fri 16 Oct 26

Oscar Ledlin’s $30m Bet on an Asset Class That Does Not Yet Exist

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