News

Walker Corporation’s 350 hectare business park, Citiswich, is expanding quickly with land sales and $120 million worth of new projects now under construction. Citiswich Development Manager for Walker, Mr Todd Martindale said “new tenants and owner occupiers are taking advantage of affordable land prices and excellent transport links to the Ipswich Motorway, Cunningham and Warrego Highways.

Citiswich is also attracting a diverse offering of amenities not usually available in traditional industrial estates, with convenience shopping, showrooms, trade outlets, gyms, child care, fast food and cafés, with extensive landscape areas set aside for dedicated parklands and walkways. Project commitments with work currently underway include:

Costco’s $50 million project is progressing well for an opening now planned for early 2019. The new 13,750 square metre warehouse outlet, service station and car parking for 825 vehicles will be a key traffic generator to the estate. Country Manager, Costco Australia, Mr Patrick Noone, said “We believe Citiswich is an excellent location as it draws on large catchment areas from Brisbane to the Western corridor and regional areas”.

TAE Aerospace has purchased an existing building on Hoepner Road and is transforming the site into a state-of-the art aerospace facility to service its defence customers with construction now underway. According to TAE Aerospace CEO Mr Andrew Sanderson, redevelopment works planned for the RAAF Base ruled out expanding existing facilities to cater for the volume of new work from Asia-Pacific. A number of alternatives were considered, including greenfield sites. TAE has operated from the RAAF base since 2000 but has outgrown the facility where staff were dispersed across multiple buildings.

Mr Sanderson added “While being able to consolidate our staff in the one building in Citiswich, the Bundamba location is great for us. We are close to Ipswich where many of our people live, the Brisbane CBD and port for deliveries.”

Queensland Urban Utilities (QUU) is one of the largest water and sewerage service providers in Australia. QUU provides drinking water, recycled water, and sewerage services to over 1.3 million people throughout the Brisbane, Ipswich, Lockyer Valley, Scenic Rim and the Somerset local government areas in Queensland. To improve efficiencies, QUU identified Citiswich as the preferred location for its new depot facility to support QUU’s western operations, as recently opened in Hoepner Road. This new facility was designed and constructed to suit QUU’s exact requirements with extensive external hardstand pavement on a one hectare site.

International brand, World Gym recognised Citiswich as the perfect location to build a massive gym in a multi- purpose facility. Since opening this year its patronage continues to grow and add to the overall amenity in the estate.

Additionally, Walker Corporation has launched a new project with DA now approved for a new corporate facility of 11,795 square metres to suit a large distribution centre, with construction to commence in early 2019. The site on Hoepner Road is located opposite Capral Aluminium’s Queensland Headquarters. The facility is being offered for lease now at a rental rate from $95-100 per square metre.

Citiswich marketing agents, Knight Frank, Joint Head of Industrial Queensland, Mr Mark Clifford confirmed “the industrial occupier market has certainly seen a lot of activity over the past 12 months. Existing A grade warehouse and logistics facilities have been leased at fast rate, with close to 50,000 square metres of leasing deals completed on existing facilities in just the last 2 months in the south west of Brisbane.

“A grade stock in the 5,000 square metre to 15,000 square metre range, with design and construct opportunities estates are well and truly on the radar for tenants. Tenants that would normally prefer to negotiate on existing buildings now look closely at the design and construct opportunities available”, he concluded.

Colliers International, National Director Industrial, Mr Matthew Frazer-Ryan confirmed, “the ongoing success of the Citiswich Estate at Bundamba typifies the growing take up of land supply in greater Brisbane and the ongoing realisation that readily available land is in short supply.

“Over the past 12 months to September 2018, the average price for industrial land in Brisbane has risen by 9.2%, whilst recent supply analysis for immediately available land provides for 3.6 years of available industrial land supply”, he concluded.

Walker Corporation has a range of fully serviced, ready to build lots for sale or lease at Citiswich Business Park, ranging in size from 2,000 square metres to 200,000 square metres, with B-Double access throughout and direct access to the motorways.