Solomon Lew makes St Kilda Road bargain-basement buy

2 hours ago 1

Capital gain

Rich lister Solomon Lew, the biggest shareholder in department store Myer, has taken a lift down to the bargain basement and snapped up a cheap St Kilda Road office building.

Records show a new Lew company, Market Street Projects, has a caveat over 417 St Kilda Road. Rumours emanating from the leafy boulevard suggest he nabbed it for $90 million and is settling this week.

The 10-storey A-grade building, overlooking Fawkner Park, was bought in 2017 by Singaporean government investor Mapletree for $144.4 million. Ouch.

Solomon Lew has bought 417 St Kilda Road, Melbourne.

Some pundits note the land alone – 6071 square metres – is worth $100 million, and the cost of building the office anew would be about $200 million.

“If the building was vacant, it would be worth more,” Capital Gain was told.

The building is already home to Lew’s Century Plaza on level seven, but has four empty floors that could house some of his many businesses. The 20,184 sq m building recently scored a $6 million makeover.

Lew already owns two other buildings on the boulevard – the eight-storey 457 St Kilda Road, which Lew bought for $55 million in 2016, and its neighbour at No. 425, which houses Playcorp.

Records show Lew bought No. 425 in 1987, paying $8 million. Apparently it’s in dire need of a renovation – or demolition. He declined to comment on his plans.

Lew’s net worth declined slightly to $4.1 billion this year from $4.7 billion, according to the 2025 Australian Financial Review rich list, but that’s because his wealth relies so heavily on Myer’s uncertain fortunes, of which he controls 26.77 per cent.

The sale of 417 St Kilda Road was negotiated by Knight Frank’s Trent Preece and Tom Ryan and CBRE’s Kiran Pillai and Scott McGlone, who declined to comment.

The same teams are handling the next St Kilda Road property on the market, No. 484, an 18-level building bought in 2014 by Swiss investor Kuehne Real Estate Australia.

The company paid $94 million for the 20,270 sq m office and hopes to sell it for more than $90 million.

However, St Kilda Road office space has been in the bargain basement for years as businesses flee the boulevard for fresher CBD fringe markets. Values have dropped by a third as residential redevelopments overtake office.

Collins Street carnage

CBD investor Malik Suleman has gone bust, with corporate undertaker KordaMentha putting 470 Collins Street on the sales block.

The Suleman family, who derived their wealth from a fresh flower wholesaling business, was flying high when they snapped up the 10-storey tower in 2011, planning a redevelopment for the $30.55 million purchase.

In 2020, the group embarked on a $275 million build-to-rent and retail project, Union Quarter, in Spotswood and completed it last year. After planning to hold the development, the group put it up for sale last year.

KordaMentha, acting for ANZ, was appointed to the Suleman family-owned company, Malik Suleman, in July. A report lodged in August declined to specify how much ANZ was owed, but mortgage documents indicate $70 million was borrowed in 2019.

Records show a second mortgage was taken out on the tower in April, with AMAL Security Services specifying “an initial advance” of $87.5 million.

The report also declined to nominate the value of the 16-storey tower, but it’s understood agents are quoting around $60 million. The building, intended for redevelopment, is rundown and about 40 per cent vacant.

Cushman & Wakefield’s Daniel Wolman, Oliver Hay, Leon Ma and CBRE’s Nick Peden, Jamus Campbell and Scott McGlone have the listing.

Calls to the Suleman Group went unanswered.

Sources said Suleman wanted $350 million for the property and rejected an offer of $250 million last year. Bujar, the company that owns the land on which the project was built, is not in receivership. First round offers on the project, through JLL and Cushman & Wakefield, closed last week.

The company, which owns the Suleman head office at 253-269 Wellington Road in Mulgrave, is also not in receivership, but it’s for sale at around $11 million through LAWD’s Lukas Byrns and Henry Sayers.

Glenferrie

The Hawthorn head office of ASX-listed trinket retailer Lovisa is up for grabs. Records show the building is owned by fish wholesaling families the Spencers and the De Souzas, who run Seven Seas Seafood and Casa Iberica in Yarraville.

The three-storey building at 818 Glenferrie Road is fully leased, with nearly three-quarters of the 1940 sq m of office rented to Lovisa. It returns $1.365 million a year in rent and is expected to fetch around $20 million.

Lovisa’s headquarters at 818 Glenferrie Road, Hawthorn.

The building last changed hands in 2010 for $8.4 million though records show a transaction recorded in January streamlined four ownership groups into one: JTAL Investments.

The 2639 sq m building is on a 1497 sq m parcel of land. Gorman Commercial agents Peter Bremner, Stephen Gorman and Jonathon McCormack have the listing.

Also for sale in the eastern suburbs precinct is the former office of Family Doctor founder Rod Aziz at 345-347 Riversdale Road.

Aziz sold the 110-practice Family Doctor chain to US private equity firm KKR for around $300 million earlier this year and bought a new office at 425 Riversdale Road for $8.66 million.

His old office is on an 878 sq m site in the Camberwell Junction Major Activity Centre and has plans for a 16-unit project.

Colliers agents Eddie Foulkes, Alex Browne and Ben Baines have the listing and are expecting more than $4.75 million.

Mortgagee

It turns out the bluestone and asphalt streets of Silicon Yarra are not yet paved with gold. The Cubitt Street Tower, developed and built by the late Peter Lanassi, has hit the market under instructions by its mortgagee.

The 966 sq m seven storey mini-tower at 84 Cubitt Street, Cremorne, was designed by Pandolfini Architects and built by Lanassi’s Principal Constructions.

It was completed in 2022 and subdivided into five offices, each of about 200 sq m, and was built on a tiny 250 sq m block, the site of Lenassi’s former workshop.

It is 80 per cent leased to office tenants and fashion retailer Viktoria & Woods, and if fully let could return an estimated $692,252 a year in rent.

Colliers agents Ben Baines, Alex Browne and Eddie Foulkes have the listing. It’s likely to fetch a rate of about $10,000 a sq m, which translates into $9.5 million.

It’s up the road from Lanassi’s other strata play, Altera, at 70 Cubitt Street, where construction has stalled close to completion. Sadly, Lenassi’s well-known dedication to quality was not matched by his funding sources.

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