Sellers of the world’s favourite ‘fugly shoes’ are on the move

Comfy Crocs, is moving to 500 square metres of Podco’s revamped 658 Church Street building in Cremorne and out of ageing office space at 71 Queens Road, a building slated for demolition.

Meanwhile, German-based Birkenstock is taking a punt on the youth dollar, moving out of its long-held retail-workshop-office space at 113-115 Queens Parade, Clifton Hill, for a fresh footprint at the Maltstore in Carlton.

Birkenstock is taking half the space of the building at 551 Swanston Street and will have a shop on the ground floor.

Puma, which sold its Moorabbin headquarters in May for nearly $20 million, is also on the move. The German sportswear retailer is looking for new digs in Cremorne, similar to Adidas’ space at Fortis’ 81 Dover Street.

Meanwhile, yoga gear retailer Lululemon is searching for around 1000 square metres of new space in Cremorne after several years in Collingwood.

Helsinki-based Amer Sports, whose cult brands include Arc’teryx and Salomon, is also on the hunt for a headquarters, brandishing a wishlist of locations ranging from Mulgrave to Chadstone, Balaclava, Cremorne and Richmond.

The Finns are after 1800-2400 square metres of space, with 1700 square metres of office. CBRE agents Rikki Garner and Darren Nugent are handling the tenant requests.

CBD shops

A row of shops opposite the Bourke Street Mall has sold for $11.88 million in a deal offering glimmers of hope for the CBD market. A local investor beat five others for the three-storey bluestone building at 203-207 Elizabeth Street.

Bloomy Hair Salon and clothing store Set Studio occupy two of the three shops while upstairs has been converted into six apartments.

Records show the vendors paid $2.15 million for the building during the early 1990s recession.

Cushman & Wakefield agents Anthony Kirwan, Oliver Hay, Daniel Wolman and Leon Ma had initially quoted between $9 million and $10 million for the historic property.

Around the corner at Somerset Place, the shop housing cult Japanese label Comme des Garcons has also sold.

Kirwan, who did the deal with Jack Cooper, said a first-time local commercial investor splashed $1.52 million on the laneway boutique.

The buyer was attracted to the global tenant and the 5.21 per cent yield, which was superior to the family’s residential investments, he said.

Still in the CBD, two shops at 267-271 King Street go to auction on September 24. Jones Real Estate’s Paul Jones is expecting around $5 million.

Leased to Taketori and House of Kebabs, the shops are on 212 square metres of land next door to the razed 1918 square metre site at 600 Lonsdale Street.

V-Leader’s Andy Zhang forked out $48 million for the strata-titled office block in 2019 and listed it last year with hopes of $65 million. It’s off the market and expected to be turned into a city park. A good place to eat those kebabs.

Beach huts

The Simonds family has taken a No.1 haircut on the sale of the Chapel Lane Huts site in South Yarra.

The 817 square-metre site at 430-436 Chapel Street has sold for just $9 million – well short of the $14.2 million paid in 2022.

Market sources suggest the buyer is Yale Investment Group, one of a number of groups that have looked over the 817 square-metre site in the past few years.

Yale Investment Group is owned by Andrew and Charlie Sirianni, whose Livv Development Group has a slate of projects in Geelong and Avalon.

Cushman & Wakefield’s Anthony Kirwan, George Davies and Raphael Favas brokered the off-market deal but declined to comment on the buyer or the vendor.

Gary Simonds, the founder of listed builder the Simonds Group, had planned to build a new family office in the central Chapel Street location, buying the site from a joint venture between Franze Developments and the Sampieri Group.

The latter had paid $11 million in 2018 and obtained a permit for a seven-level office on the property which once housed nine brightly coloured beach huts leased to individual retailers.

It’s near the $3.75 billion Gurner-Qualitas Jam Factory redevelopment which is under way with a bumper permit for 800 apartments and about 20,000 square metres of shops and office.

Across the street, developer Sterling Global is offloading two shops at 467 and 469 Chapel Street, part of a larger row it bought in 2018 for a hotel project that never got off the ground.

The shops at Nos. 467-473 covered 700 square metres of land and cost $8.25 million. Records show the shops at 471 and 473 Chapel Street sold to investor Rocky Surace in 2023 for $4.15 million.

The remaining properties are going to auction on September 19 and are expected to sell in the mid-to-high-$1 million range through Fitzroys’ Chris James and Lewis Waddell.

Toorak Road

Orchard Piper is selling the last of its office suites in the nearly finished Toorak Village project. The 245 square-metre corner office has the best spot in the block on level two at 420 Toorak Road and is likely to fetch more than $4 million.

The project’s strata offices have fetched record $17,000-plus a square metre sales rates in the past 18 months, making $16.5 million in total sales.

Colliers agent Ben Baines, who has the listing with Matt Knox, said strata office enquiries have increased 26 per cent this year with local owner-occupiers looking outside of the CBD.

Down the road at 307-315 Toorak Road, a neat mock-Tudor block of shops next to the Como Centre is back on the market for the first time since 2020.

Records show the property, which is on a 987 square-metre site, last changed hands for $6.68 million. The Activity Centre zoned land which could allow for more than six storeys.

Cushman & Wakefield agents Daniel Wolman, Leon Ma, Oliver Hay and Raphael Favas and Gorman Commercial’s Jonathon McCormack and Stephen Gorman are expecting around $10 million.

ASU headquarters

The Australian Services Union has sold its long-held office in Carlton to a developer for around $12.5 million.

The city fringe office at 116 Queensberry Street, on the corner of Cardigan Street, has been ASU headquarters since the late 1980s.

The three-storey building is on a 1026 square-metre piece of land and ripe for redevelopment.