The owners of ice-cream institution Dairy Bell have offloaded the company's high-profile Malvern East headquarters, after announcing earlier this month they would close the 45-year-old business.
The off-market sale gives control of the 3000-square-metre site to burgeoning local developer Little Projects, backed by former Toll Holdings chief Paul Little, whose estimated net worth is about $715 million and growing.
Opposite the East Malvern railway station and Waverley Oval, Dairy Bell's white manufacturing plant and office is expected to be replaced with a medium-density apartment block with lower-level shops.
The Commercial 1 zoned property abuts an edge of a small retail strip on Waverley Road but also has access to Belgrave Road and Sycamore Street. Chadstone Shopping Centre, Holmesglen TAFE and the M1 Freeway are a short distance away.
Melbourne Acquisitions' Dominic Gibson, Rick Silberman and Steve Messina declined to comment about the off-market campaign.
Dairy Bell, which is fully solvent, cited excessive penalty rates in the face of falling profits, led by a supermarket ice-cream war, for its closure.
At the time, the ice-creamery owners made reference to the redevelopment potential of the company's Melbourne and Sydney sites, which was perhaps enough to pique the interest of Little Projects, an active off-market buyer.
Late last year, Little Projects teamed with Freemasons Victoria to co-develop two former Masonic centres in Box Hill and Kew East, not offered publicly.
The developer also acquired a site at the Docklands end of Fishermans Bend and recently paid nearly $20 million for the outgoing Thomas Dux supermarket site in Bridge Road, Richmond.
Little Projects has redeveloped the former Tip Top bread factory in Brunswick East and a former Telstra exchange tower in Toorak Road, often described as South Yarra's ugliest building.
Mr Little is speculated to own Melbourne's most expensive home, Coonac, in Toorak, which agents said would sell for more than $50 million if offered.
Since retiring from the supply chain empire in 2012 after 26 years, Mr Little has focused on other ventures, including the successful development business run by another former Toll executive, Michael Fox.
He has also taken up the high-profile chairman role with the Essendon Football Club.
TERRACE FOR LEASE
A Melbourne central business district terrace owned by World Mayor 2006 John So is for lease.
The former Pizza Napoli premises at 122 Russell Street, between Bourke and Little Collins streets, has an internal area of 200 square metres and a small rear yard.
Mr So paid the Pizza Napoli founders and proprietors $4 million for the property in mid-2013, then renovated it. The popular trattoria owned the premises since 1974.
It was expected the former Melbourne lord mayor would open a restaurant at 122 Russell Street - his portfolio includes a suite of hospitality businesses - but instead he leased it to another restaurant operator last year.
The Hong Kong-born businessman was considered Melbourne's most popular lord mayor and is the longest serving, representing the city from 2001 until the end of 2008.
Alexander Robertson's Kristian Peatling and Matthew Warman are representing Mr So.
PRICE SKY HIGH
In another show of how fast Melbourne land values are rising, an offshore developer is believed to be paying $38 million for a 1741-square-metre CBD block next to a similar-sized parcel that sold two years ago for $19 million.
Sources say Singapore's Tong Eng Brothers is buying a former Abaris Printing site at 111-125 A'Beckett Street, with a view to proposing Melbourne's next super-scraper.
The vendors paid $7.4 million for the site in 2006. Between 1934 and 1992, the distinctive double-storey art deco building was owned by the Roman Catholic Church.
Next door, at 127-141 A'Beckett Street, developer ICD is marketing a 63-level, 632-unit tower branded EQ, on a site it bought in late 2012 without a permit.
EQ is the latest in a string of 60-level plus CBD proposals, most of which were met last year with off-the-plan sales success, resulting in construction.
Depth of apartment buyer demand was discussed at a seminar hosted by CBRE last month, with the agency pointing to independent research showing 4 per cent of Melburnians live in high-rise apartments, compared to more than 10 per cent in Sydney.
The agency argued locations close to urban environments are increasingly preferred over the traditional "Australian dream" of a quarter-acre block in the suburbs.
More inner-city apartments will be developed in Sydney than Melbourne this year, a discussion paper from the seminar, What's Driving Melbourne? says.
SHOPPING CENTRE SELLS
A private investor is paying $7.4 million for a small shopping centre in Beaconsfield, in outer south-east Melbourne.
The Beaconsfield Hub complex at 52-62 Old Princes Highway returns annual rent of $520,000 and is exchanging on a yield of 7 per cent.
The 1883-square-metre complex includes nine retail shops and 71 car parks but is on a relatively small site for a shopping centre, with little redevelopment potential. It is also not anchored by a supermarket - its highest-profile tenant is Bendigo Bank.
Beaconsfield sits between Berwick and Officer and, like these suburbs, is undergoing a wave of house-and-land development. The local municipality is forecast to have short-term annual population growth of 5 per cent, making it one of Australia's fastest growing.
CBRE's Justin Dowers, Rorey James and Mark Wizel sold the property with Facey Industrial Commercial's Mark Bond and Josh Kendall.
LUXURY APARTMENTS
Decades after the waterfront Beachcomber Restaurant was destroyed by fire, the blue ribbon land parcel on which it sat is set to be developed as a luxury apartment complex.
The St Kilda site at 35 Marine Parade, on the north-east corner of Wordsworth Street and opposite the marina, has been approved for a 23-unit building designed by Fender Katsalidis.
The block is said to be one of the most inquired about in Melbourne property circles, with an agent telling Capital Gain once the owners, a private consortium, field a request a week from builders.
Kay & Burton's Michael Armstrong is expected to market the St Kilda apartments.
Last year, developers paid $6 million for the Brighton site, for years the depot to the now-defunct Elwood Tram and Bus service. That site, opposite a park and Elwood Beach, is also expected to make way for flats.
Email: marcpallisco@gmail.com
Twitter: @marcpallisco
