Newmark Sells Brandon Park Shopping Centre for $107m

A property funds manager headed by former AFL commissioner Chris Langford has sold a Melbourne shopping centre with development approval for $107 million—$27.5 million less than it paid.

Newmark Capital has offloaded Brandon Park Shopping Centre at Wheelers Hill to ASX‑listed asset manager HMC Capital, which will reportedly include it in their Last Mile Retail Logistics Fund.

Brandon Park is about a 30-minute drive south-east of the CBD at the corner of Springvale and Ferntree Gully roads near the Monash National Employment and Innovation Cluster.

Coles and Aldi anchor the centre, which has a gross lettable area of 23,038sqm, reflecting a site coverage of 40 per cent.

Ex-Hawks star Langford is managing director at Newmark, which in 2022 gained approval to redevelop the Brandon Park site that the group acquired from Vicinity Centres and TelstraSuper in 2018 for $135 million.

The seven-storey proposal included retail, medical, two floors of office and 103 serviced apartments but the project went undeveloped. 

It’s been a solid year on the deals front for Newmark.

The $540-million acquisition of its Newmark Property REIT by BWP Trust settled in June. The REIT mostly held assets leased to Bunnings Warehouse.

Meanwhile last month, Newmark sold its stake in Gurner’s and Qualitas’ $2.75-billion Jam Factory mixed-use redevelopment at South Yarra with Langford saying it was the “right time” and would “provide investors with more certainty”.

▲ An initial 10-storey application was knocked back by the council in 2021 before this seven-storey amended plan was approved in 2022.

Brandon Park was sold by JLL’s Stuart Taylor, Nick Willis and Jesse Radisich with CBRE’s Simon Rooney, James Douglas and David Minty, on behalf of Newmark Capital.

Rooney said, “It attracted keen interest from a wide range of investors given its metropolitan Melbourne location coupled with the opportunity to enhance the retail offering via strategic repositioning.

“The site also offers future potential for a large scale, mixed-use development opportunity subject to the relevant planning approvals. 

“Shopping centres are increasingly evolving into multi-dimensional precincts, with Brandon Park providing the ideal platform to deliver a future project of scale and flexibility.”

▲ Last Mile Retail Logistics [LML] Fund is an unlisted wholesale fund focused on essential daily needs, including retail centres such Brandon Park Shopping Centre.

JLL’s Taylor said, “The sub-regional sector continues to receive very strong demand, particularly those in metropolitan locations, driven by [the] ability to achieve appealing yield spread to the risk-free rate and opportunities to drive enhance via under-utilised land.

“Low volumes of retail transactions YTD, particularly in Victoria, is a result of a supply-demand imbalance, with participation levels in Brandon Park demonstrating the depth of investor appetite.”

The region around Brandon Park has 85,870 residents and a local workforce of 6000 next to one of Victoria’s largest employment hubs outside of the CBD, the Monash National Employment and Innovation Cluster.