190 Church Street BRIGHTON

Comments on 190 Church Street BRIGHTON

190 Church Street and the whole negotiation surrounding it, is interesting.
The property itself has some pluses and minuses. The pluses are big block, in the Church St area.
The minuses are that it is not within the activity zone, is south facing meaning that all the properties that you’ll put on there will have some south facing rear aspect and the land itself slopes away.
Having said all that, how may alternatives at 1300sqm approx. do you have in this area? Not many.
It also doesn’t have a heritage overlay the sort of development restriction that some of the surrounding properties have, including its neighbour. Going forward 190 Church could be an attractive property to somebody who wants to put a brand-new building on, or someone who wants to develop it. The question is, if you want to buy this property and if you want to sell this property, or you want to develop this property – what are the numbers?
There are still multiple alternatives even though it is not in the activity zone and even though its zoning is neighbourhood residential rather than the slightly easier to develop general residential zoning - meaning you don’t have that height ability to put 3 story apartments - however because it is on a “main road” being Church Street and it is near the activity zone you can still do significant development.
So what it's worth generally - we see no real value in the home – it’s purely land. So, what is the land worth - do we and will others compare sales in our outside the activity zone.
If outside - how far outside the zone - and how many larger blocks of land are there.
Now there are a couple of sales in the area, there has been a substantial sale in Black Street which didn’t have a heritage overlay but was in the activity zone. If you look at Church Street towards the railway, you will see 2 key sales in recent times. One we were involved in, which sold for $6m, we call it the Adams family home, that has a heritage overlay on it, so you have to keep the house, you can’t put any apartments on there, in fact those 3 houses together all have heritage overlay.
Now next door to it, on the railway side, doesn’t have a heritage overlay, and it just sold for $6,250,000 in 2017. At that $6,000 a sqm, you put that onto this block, you get $8m+.
If you put sales just around the area that aren’t near the activity zone you’ll get close to $5m at $3,750 per sqm
The numbers are all conjecture if the owner doesn’t want to sell or the buyer doesn’t want to buy - but if they do then the $5,000,000 to $7,000,000 range seems to cover all bases.