Major players vie for Eglinton footprint

THE state government has short-listed three companies to potentially partner with its agency LandCorp in the development of Eglinton in Perth’s northern coastal development corridor.

National group Mirvac has been named in competition with Perth-based players Peet, a major listed player, and Satterley, a significant private company run by Nigel Satterley, on a shortlist to deliver a new 120-hectare estate providing residential land for 3,000 home sites, including affordable living choices and community facilities.

The proposed partnership will develop the northern half of LandCorp’s 240ha Eglinton holding, which sits east of Marmion Avenue between Alkimos and Yanchep.

Two of these named players, Satterley and Mirvac, were among the final three shortlisted in 2009 for a similar joint venture with LandCorp to develop the nearby Alkimos area.

They were ultimately unsuccessful, with the bid being won by Lend Lease in January 2010. That 285ha first stage of the Alkimos area development was to include 2,500-dwellings developed over seven years, concluding in 2018, with Lend Lease pitching in $20 million to establish the project.

Peet and Satterley both have development projects in the coastal corridor area. Satterley has been very active in developing Brighton, the northern-most area to have been significantly developed until Yanchep is reached. Satterley also has control of a 67ha area on the south-east fringe of Alkimos, which was part of the estate of Lindsay Spiers.

Peet is currently developing Shorehaven between Alkimos and Eglinton Estates, the 561ha coastal element of Eglinton owned by interests associated with property developer and conservationist Martin Copley.

Shorehaven is a 240ha slice of coastal land purchased by Peet in 2008 for $300 million from WR Carpenter, a company associated with financially struggling coal baron Rick Stowe. That set a benchmark price for the area during the recent property boom at $1.25 million per hectare, although the site was skewed to prime coastal development with 1.7km of beachfront.

LandCorp still has about 470ha of land in Alkimos.

Another major national player, Australand, has 52ha at Jindowie north of Eglinton, and LWP is managing a 226ha development south of Alkimos on the eastern side of Marmion Avenue, just above the Butler region.

The greater Alkimos-Eglinton area should house about 50,000 people in the next 25 years.

Mirvac is not known to be active in the area, having been a big player in the southern corridor, notably Mandurah, near where it has overseen the Meadow Springs development.

Another notable absentee* (see addendum below) in the area is national property developer Stockland, which has recently been expanding its residential land footprint in WA, focusing on the eastern growth corridors. Last month, it boosted its WA land holdings by almost 40 per cent to close the big gap between it and local leaders, Satterley and Peet.

Stockland paid $271 million to buy 340ha of land in two estates from construction group Brookfield Prime Property Fund, part of the Brookfield group that took over Multiplex.

In the deal, Stockland also sold its half share in Bankwest Tower to Brookfield for $130 million. Brookfield now owns the whole building.

The acquisition of 3,900 lots at The Vale and Whiteman Edge takes the Sydney-based developer above 10,000 lots in WA, more than half the holdings of Peet, which owns or manages 19,240 lots in the state, based on estimates from its half year presentation, and Satterley, which claims around 25,000.

Listed developer Cedar Woods has boosted its WA landholdings to about 5,070 lots when a 68ha, 800-lot acquisition in Baldivis is added to its estimated holdings at the end of the 2009-10 financial year.

Before that, the most recent other major acquisition in the greater metropolitan area was by the Satterley Group, which paid $90 million for about 105ha of land from a deceased estate at Harrisdale in the south-east corridor.

Addendum: In February 2010 national property developer Stockland disclosed it had acquired a 50 per cent interest in a project development agreement with a private landowner for a residential community at Eglinton.

It said the 198-hectare site is currently zoned residential and is expected to yield 2,284 residential lots, a school site and a retail centre.

The vendor was Eglinton Estates, a private company led by the family of entrepreneur and philanthropist Martin Copley, which holds 561ha of coastal land and has approvals in place for a marina development.