Fraser Brown sells Hawthorn office for $24.8m

Fraser Brown, the former Carlton footballer who built Brown Property Group into a Melbourne developer, has sold his firm’s Hawthorn (City of Boroondara) office headquarters at 2-4 Roche Street for $24.8m, realestatesource.com.au reported on 30 October 2026. Two firms bought the property jointly: Cadence Property Group, headed by Charlie Buxton, together with Align Property Partners, which was co-founded by Guy French-Wright and Jack Mahoney.

Brown Property Group bought the 1,201sqm Commercial 1 site in 2017 and completed a four-level, 2,947sqm A-grade office on it in 2024, fitting out 91 car parks, 54 bike bays, terraces and end-of-trip facilities including grooming and ironing stations, plus a ground-floor cafe. CBRE’s Nick Peden and Jamus Campbell handled the sale, which the report said followed a campaign launched in June.

Why it matters

The deal lands as Align pursues its first Sydney office acquisition, an $85m North Sydney purchase the outlet reported was still being negotiated 10 days earlier. Buying the completed Hawthorn asset gives the Cadence-Align partnership an income-producing Melbourne office to sit alongside that expansion, rather than a site still needing a build. The partnership also secures a built asset with an incumbent tenant covering part of its income from settlement, rather than carrying vacancy risk while it leases the building up.

Brown is keeping a foothold in the building: he has taken a 10-year leaseback over part of the ground floor, and the incoming owners are understood to already have a tenant lined up for another vacant level. That structure let the sale proceed with income secured from settlement, a factor that matters for pricing an A-grade asset outside the CBD core.

The numbers

Brown Property Group bought the 1,201sqm Commercial 1 block in 2017, seven years before selling the completed office. The building carries 91 car parks and 54 bike bays across its four levels, alongside the leased ground-floor cafe tenancy.

The sale follows a similar pattern the outlet flagged in May, when an unnamed former Richmond player sold a Doncaster site for $9 million after shelving plans for 54 apartments there, another ex-footballer exiting a development holding.

What’s next

Settlement terms were not disclosed in the report. Cadence and Align now hold an occupied Hawthorn office with Brown as a tenant for the next decade, while Align’s parallel Sydney move, the reported $85m North Sydney office, remains unresolved.