This article is from the Australian Property Journal archive
CHARTER Hall has secured the Australian Financial Complaints Authority as a major tenant of its 130 Lonsdale Street tower within its Wesley Place development in Melbourne’s CBD.
AFCA, which began operating at the beginning of November following the merger of the former Financial Ombudsman Services, Superannuation Complaints Tribunal and Credit and Investments Ombudsman, will take up 7,600 sqm across levels 24 to 27 from July 2020 on a 12-year lease.
The deal takes pre-commitments to the 35-storey, 55,000 sqm premium-grade office tower to around 78%, in which AFCA will join Telstra Super, Cbus Super, Uniting Church in Australia, and financial services group Vanguard, which signed a 10-year lease last summer over 10,500 sqm across six floors.
Charter Hall’s total investment in the one-hectare Wesley Place precinct, which includes three towers across 130, 140 and 150 Lonsdale Street is expected to tick over $1.2 billion. It will restore historic buildings on the site including and the Wesley Church, Caretaker’s Cottage, Manse, School House and Nicholas Hall.
Number 130 will be held by the $4.5 billion wholesale fund, Charter Hall Prime Office Fund, and curved gold and bronze tower is registered to pursue WELL certification and target 6-Star Green Star design, As-Built v1.1 and 5-Star NABERS ratings.
“Upon completion, Wesley Place will further enhance CPOF’s portfolio quality and total return metrics and deliver our Fund Investors a coveted new Premium Grade office building in the tightly held Melbourne CBD core office precinct,” CPOF fund manager, Matthew Brown said.
“This new lease demonstrates our approach to securing significant tenant pre-commitments to de-risk the approximately $1.3 billion of committed projects that we have underway nationally within our office funds management platform.”
Tim Farley, national director of Colliers International’s tenant advisory team represented AFCA in the negotiations.
Charter Hall Office Trust owns 140 and 150 Lonsdale Street, and is reportedly close for securing a tenant for the entirety of the A-grade, 22,000 sqm space at the former, which would prompt construction the 20-level tower. The Victorian government gave planning approval for the tower earlier this year.
According to Fairfax, Origin Energy is believed to be have large space requirement out to the market, while a state government tenant looms as a possibility – the Victorian Department of Education in its quest to consolidate staff from seven sites.
Property Council data showed vacancy across Melbourne’s CBD was crunched to a 10-year low of 3.6% at the end of June amid high demand a shortage of new stock. That has flowed through to the new developments; Savills data shows that of the 494,200 sqm of office space currently under construction across the city, around 76% is pre-committed.
At 150 Lonsdale Street, Charter Hall is looking to refurbish the existing Telstra-anchored 28-level tower to an A-grade standard.
Australian Property Journal
Article and headline amended at 1:14 p.m. on April 10, 2025, to remove a figure.
