Melbourne car park near Queen Vic Market tipped to sell for $120m

The car park is just across the road from a 3.2 hectare site bordered by Franklin, Queen and Peel streets, known as Gurrowa Place, that Lendlease secured the rights to develop last year into a $1.7 billion precinct of apartments and offices for the City of Melbourne.

Also close by is the recently completed LIV Munro Build-to-Rent project featuring 490 apartments by ASX-listed Mirvac and private developer PDG.

Ownership of the Queens Street car park is held by Kim Lim Australia, an entity controlled by the Lim family. The Singaporeans paid $9 million for the property in 1991.

In 2015, the Lims tried to sell the 380 Queens Street car park for about $70 million as well as a second smaller car park at 16-32 Leicester Street in Carlton for about $40 million. The smaller car park has since been developed into student accommodation.

The six-level Queens Street carpark – operated as Kim Lim Parking – is being marketed by Oliver Hay, Daniel Wolman and Leon Ma from Cushman & Wakefield.

The property features over 550 carpark bays as well as a ground floor showroom with 1917 sq m of lettable space that will provide holding income while development plans are pursued.

“380 Queen Street represents a rare opportunity to shape the Queen Victoria Market Precinct’s future, being one of the last CBD sites with the potential for multi tower precinct scheme,” Mr Hay said.

At Gurrowa Place, Lendlease will develop a 28-level, 43,000-square-metre office tower, a 560-unit build-to-rent tower and affordable unit tower as well as a 1.8-hectare public park.

Student housing provider Scape will separately develop a $350-$400 million, 1100-bed student accommodation tower on the same site.

Amid all this development, the City of Melbourne is spending $268 million upgrading the historic market, including restoring heritage buildings and adding new facilities.

Last year, works commenced on the construction of a new three-storey Trader Shed to replace the 1980s meat and seafood delivery dock. Nearly all 12 existing sheds were restored last year, while 3765 sq m of solar panels were installed on the shed roofs, enough to cover the surface of three Olympic swimming pools.