Asahi, GPT Break Ground in $1bn Deer Park Estate
UniSuper’s $1-billion Deer Park Estate has secured its first major tenant with a distribution centre for Asahi Beverages breaking ground.
The centre is planned to consolidate the company’s logistics operations and capitalise on the site’s strategic access to Melbourne’s freight network and airport.
The Deer Park Estate, which has potential to accommodate more than 330,000sq m of logistics and warehouse space once fully developed, is 18km west of Melbourne’s CBD and owned by the $160-billion superannuation fund.
It is being built in stages and has a forecast end value exceeding $1 billion.
GPT, the trustee of the Deer Park Industrial Trust and fund manager for UniSuper, will build the high-bay warehouse incorporating automation equipment at 179 Tilburn Road in Precinct 2 of the estate.
The facility is to be leased to Asahi on a long-term basis under a build-to-lease arrangement. Development manager HB+B Property will deliver infrastructure and civil works on the estate alongside GPT.
Asahi’s distribution centre is due to be completed by mid-2026 and is expected to streamline the company’s manufacturing and logistics operations.
The facility has arterial road access to Melbourne’s planned intermodal freight precincts, the Port of Melbourne, Melbourne Airport and other industrial and retail areas.
Asahi Beverages general manager manufacturing and project delivery Adrian Benson said that “Deer Park Estate and its easy access to nearby major roads makes this a highly strategic location for our new distribution centre” that would “increase the efficiency and productivity of Asahi’s operations”.
“More than 98 per cent of the beverages we sell in Australia are made by us in Australia,” Benson said.
He said the new distribution centre would create “more efficient distribution routes, which had sustainable benefits, including the expected reduction of Asahi’s CO2 emissions from trucks”.
UniSuper senior manager, property, Nick Stephens said the estate was positioned to deliver much-needed modern industrial accommodation within the increasingly constrained West Melbourne industrial precinct.
UniSuper acquired the Deer Park site from Orica in February 2024 for $260 million, which at the time took the fund’s unlisted property holdings to $8 billion.
The explosives maker sold what it described as about half of its total surplus land holdings at Deer Park. The remaining parcel is expected to be offered to the market after remediation and approvals.
GPT negotiated the acquisition as part of a circa $3-billion direct property mandate it holds with UniSuper.
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