JLL Capital Markets has announced that it has been appointed to sell 26 Smith Street, Chatswood, in a location it describes as one of the Lower North Shore’s highly sought-after industrial precincts. The facility was previously owned by Westpac.
Sat on a 5,644 sqm landholding, the five-story building was originally built in the early 1990s. It was converted from a data center to a recovery center in 2018 when it was refurbished to operate as a business continuity center for Westpac as part of the bank’s move to a revised cloud strategy in 2018. This was intended to deploy a combination of public and private cloud environments, the latter hosted in Westpac’s two Sydney data centers according to ‘Westpac Wire’ in February 2019.
JLL co-head of Sales & Investments NSW Gordon McFadyen highlighted the facility’s potential offered to a buyer based on “the quality and adaptability of the existing improvements as well as and being able to unlock additional floor area due to it being significantly underdeveloped. The building benefits greatly from ample floor-to-ceiling height slab to slab, providing the opportunity to further adapt the current floor plates or expand the existing footprint by utilising the additional GFA”.
The site is zoned as E4 – General Industrial zoning – which allows for an “abundance” of alternate uses, It has ceiling heights ranging from 4.5-7m. and still has gensets and UPS. JLL suggests that the site could be redeveloped to yield up to 11,288 sqm of potential gross floor area (subject to relevant council approvals).
JLL Capital Markets Director of Sales & Investments Harry Sullivan highlights the building’s a high-spec fit-out, substantial power infrastructure and high-value plant and equipment and the JLL listing notes “self-storage, data center, strata industrial, distribution center, or pharmaceutical (STCA),” as possible future uses.
According to co-head of JLL Sales & Investments Dylan McEvoy: “26 Smith Street is one of only six freehold landholdings above 5,500 sqm in the precinct …….. The Chatswood industrial precinct is completely land-constrained, which puts a strict limit on future supply within such a crucial service and employment hub. We believe this precinct will experience strong future growth as it services the rapidly growing population.”
The precinct is already home to major institutions such as Bunnings Warehouse, Woolworths, Tesla, and Kennards Self Storage and has access to major arterial roads, including the M2 Motorway, M1 Motorway, Pacific Highway, and Boundary Street.
26 Smith Street Chatswood will be sold via an International Expressions of Interest process, closing at 3 pm (AEDT) on 11 April 2024.