Capital Gain
Renovations are well under way on a swanky Armadale building bought by Afterpay co-founder and billionaire rich lister Anthony Eisen and his interior designer wife, Samantha.
The couple bought the double-storey building at 1118-1120 High Street for $12 million last year with plans to use it for both their family office and interior design practice.
They sure didn’t buy it using Afterpay, the credit platform that delivered Eisen a rather large fortune after he, and co-founder Nick Molnar, sold to Jack Dorsey’s New York Stock Exchange-listed Block in 2021 for $39 billion.
Eisen, valued by the Australian Financial Review’s Rich List at $1.16 billion, is freshly cashed up after selling a chunk of his Block stake for around $67 million. His new investments include an instant refund platform called Reshop.
The Eisens reportedly moved to Melbourne around 2020 and paid $26 million for a new mansion in Toorak in 2022. They have also splashed out $13 million on a “modest” Byron Bay pad which is undergoing renovation.
The off-market Armadale deal was done by Teska Carson’s Michael Ludski and Adrian Boutsakis, who declined to comment on the buyer.
Up until 2009, the gracious Victorian-era building had been the decades-long home of Grace Antiques. It sold for $3.6 million to a menswear retailer before selling again in 2015 to disgraced aged care operator Peter Arvanitis for $6 million.
The office component’s last tenant was developer Fridcorp. The 440 square metre building is on a 455 sq m parcel of land.
The Eisens did not respond to Capital Gain’s request for information about the building’s future.
Interior design is a hot commodity. According to a recent report by The Furniture Trader - using five years of ABS data - Stonnington and Boorondara residents racked up the most expensive renovations in the state, spending an average of $25.1 million and $25.9 million per month.
Buy and flip
Up the road in Toorak, a block of townhouses on a 1400 sq m site at 39-43 Ross Street are for sale just days after the vendor, William Vavasis settled on his acquisition.
The property sits right behind One Toorak Place, the $400 million apartment project which is under construction by developers Orchard Piper and James Packer’s NPACT.
Records show Vavasis’ VSV Holdings paid a total $15.3 million for the site, which also comes with a $200 million apartment scheme designed by Fender Katsalidis.
“There is a growing buyer pool looking for the scale, quality and privacy of a substantial home without the maintenance,” Mr Vavasis said.
He’s passing on the opportunity though and CBRE agents Nathan Mufale, David Minty, Scott Hawthorne and Jing Jun Heng are being coy on the asking price.
It’s unlikely to meet the 2022 price achieved by the neighbouring property. The 3600 sq m former Mercedes-Benz car yard, the site of One Toorak Place, cost $67 million, or $18,611 a sq m.
Records show the Fink family owned the block of five two-bedroom townhouses at 39-41 Ross Street for more than 60 years before selling them to Vavasis in March for $11.5 million. Vavasis paid a further $3.8 million for neighbouring land at No.43.
Last year, the CBRE team sold 20 Carters Avenue, a double-storey office on 431 sq m in the next street, for $4.95 million.
Auction buyers cool
After some buoyant city auctions over winter, rising interest rates and general discontent have cooled buyer enthusiasm.
At a bleak lunchtime auction on Wednesday, a single bidder put up his hand for 490 Flinders Street, a 352 sq m site on the corner of Highlander Lane.
The $4 million offer was met with a vendor bid of $5 million. Buyer and vendor met in the middle during after-auction negotiations and it sold for $4.5 million.
The new buyer, understood to be nightclub owner Peter Iwanuik, who owns venues around the corner on King Street, is planning to refurbish the shop and five townhouses, which were one of the first new CBD residential projects in the 1990s.
A local architect and a group of Singaporean dentists paid a total $10.21 million in 2021 with ambitious plans for luxury apartments.
Colliers agents Matt Stagg, who handled the transaction with Christian Hatzis and Philip Heberling, said: “We already have a leasing offer on the table.” They declined to comment on the buyer’s identity.
The vendor and sole bidder at last week’s auction in Chinatown unfortunately failed to meet in the middle and the two-storey shop at 209-211 Russell Street passed in at $4.55 million despite negotiations.
Vinci Carbone’s Frank Vinci and Zach Molinaro ran the auction. It remains for sale at $4.88 million.
There was also a single bidder at the auction of 375 Queen Street, on the edge of the Queen Victoria Market - opposite one of the city’s other 1990s residential developments, Nonda Katsalidis’ Terrace Apartments.
Several parties in the crowd of 40 were glued to their phones but one bid of $2.8 million was made before it was passed in on a vendor bid of $3 million.
MAKER Property’s Anthony Kirwan, George Davies and Raphael Favas ran the show.
Ice rink
Ringwood’s long-gone ice rink, Iceland, is understood to have sold for around $20 million.
Capital Gain hears a local developer has snapped up the 9430 sq m site at 28-30 Maroondah Highway but so far there’s no movement on the property records which usually help indicate the buyer’s identity or plans.
High-profile rock bands, who were still honing their craft in the 1970s, AC/DC, Midnight Oil, Skyhooks and Cold Chisel, once played the venue, which finally closed in 2005.
Chinese-backed investors purchased it for $23.65 million in 2019 and knocked down the old building. They had bold plans for a twin-tower project, including a Marriott Hotel and a 19-storey tower.
Cushman & Wakefield’s Leon Ma, Oliver Hay, Joe Kairouz and Hamish Burgess managed the deal.
The site sits on the corner of EastLink, the railway line and Maroondah Highway in one of the state government’s activity centres earmarked for up to 20 storeys.
Once dominated by showrooms and low-rise offices, the strip is ripe for redevelopment. Across the road, a large empty site at No. 43-55, previously a Patterson Cheney car yard, is for sale.
Records show fast food giant McDonalds paid $15 million for 1.6 hectare site in 2011 and resold the balance of the land after developing a restaurant on the corner of New Street.
A group of Chinese-backed investors paid more than $13 million for the 1.4 hectare remainder in 2015.
Cushman’s Ma, Hay and Daniel Wolman have the listing and are expecting about $25 million. It’s a stone’s throw from the Ringwood Square shopping centre. Costco and Eastland are a little further to the east.
Earlier this year, the local Savers warehouse, 3510 sq m of land, sold for $10.65 million and the Jooce nightclub, an old factory, changed hands for $18.88 million in 2024.
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