Local and international developers are seizing opportunities for apartment projects in Cannington, with a major expansion of the Westfield Carousel shopping centre and the City of Canning’s town centre revitalisation plan driving a wave of medium and high-density housing developments.
Since the City of Canning adopted a new structure plan in October 2013, the metropolitan central development assessment panel has approved 348 apartments across five new buildings in Cannington’s town centre area.
And more developments are likely. The City of Canning is understood to have pared down a long list of developers for a one-hectare development site at the corner of Cecil Avenue and Sevenoaks Street to just two, while last week commercial agent JLL began a sales campaign for a 4ha vacant plot near the Beckenham train station with the potential to yield up to 1,000 dwellings.
The city is expected to announce a preferred proponent for its site, which could yield between 250 and 300 apartments, by the middle of the year.
The long-term plan for Canning’s town centre is to provide 11,950 new homes to boost the resident population by 24,400, while also adding 140,000 square metres of commercial and retail space.
Those aspirational targets, and the proximity of the Cannington train station, complement the state government’s push for urban infill developments close to major transport links.
Westfield Carousel owner Scentre Group’s expansion plan, valued at $235 million, according to DAP documents, was approved in December last year, and comprises an increase of its retail space by 50 per cent, or around 50,000sqm.
Construction is already under way on the 108-dwelling Bella Vita apartments, which is located adjacent to the Carousel shopping centre on Lake Street and comprises two nine-storey buildings by Chinese development group Sunshine
Light Property.
Marketing is also ongoing on Aus Vision Property’s four-storey, 25-apartment project, The Focal, at 14 Fletcher Street, with more than half of the dwellings already sold.
At the same time, sales are progressing quickly at the nine-storey, $48.5 million, Momentum Apartments, located on Cecil Avenue.
Local firm River Developments is driving The Momentum project, which is being project managed by Pathfinder Property.
Pathfinder managing director Bryan Negus told Business News that 40 of the Momentum apartments had been sold since marketing was launched in late February.
Mr Negus said he expected to hit the project’s pre-sales target by June 30, with construction likely to begin early in the second half of the year.
“Being one of the first to market apartments in Cannington is obviously pretty high risk,” Mr Negus said.
“At Bella Vita, we believe they’ve sold a lot internationally, so we were a bit reserved about what the capacity of the local market was.
“But we’ve found that only about 15 per cent of our buyers have been (offshore), and the remainder have been in a 10-kilometre radius of the Canning city centre.”
Mr Negus said a high proportion of sales at Momentum had been made to first home buyers, with 65 per cent of the apartments in the building eligible for stamp duty concessions and the government’s maximum $10,000 grant, due to price points being under $430,000.
“We’ve had a lot of interest from first home buyers because they can’t get product and still get the grant in other areas,” he said.
