Lloyd Williams sends prize asset into Melbourne market

The 16-level property at 114 Flinders Street, at the city’s east end, has five ground-level retail tenancies and above that 1200 car bays over a series of levels.

Topping the tower are six levels of office space, overlooking Flinders Street and the Yarra River.

Mr Williams is a Melbourne establishment figure and veteran property player who founded Hudson Conway in the 1970s and developed the Crown casino complex. He is even better known for his role in horse racing, owning a record five winners of the Melbourne Cup, including Almandin last year.

Agents from CBRE, Mark Wizel, Kiran Pillai and Lewis Tong, have been appointed to the property, along with Knight Frank’s Martin O’Sullivan and Paul Henley.

“The offering comes at a perfect point in the cycle for Melbourne CBD assets as a significant weight of both local and offshore capital aggressively chase strong income-producing core assets,” Mr Wizel said.

“The car park benefits enormously from a highly strategic location thus servicing strong demand from commercial office users as well as being the core car park for weekend diners and visitors to the MCG, Melbourne Park and AAMI Park.”

Mr O’Sullivan said the supply of car parks for investment in the CBD was limited as facilities were taken out of the market for residential development.

Six months ago one of Singapore’s largest property developers, Wing Tai,  acquired a seven-level car park further along Flinders Street for more than $31 million.

That transaction was struck on a tight investment yield of about 3 per cent, with the listed Singaporean group paying about $100,000 per bay.

Not far from the Hudson Conway-owned facility, Dexus Property Group has received planning approval for a $300 million high-rise apartment project on a car park it owns on Flinders Street.

In January, Mr Williams sold the Southbank headquarters of Hudson Conway for $11 million to a mainland Chinese company.