Two Adelaide CBD office towers on Pirie St listed for sale

Two adjoining office towers on Adelaide’s Pirie Street have been listed for sale, with 44 Pirie St and 50 Pirie St offered together or separately and expressions of interest closing on 3 December.

Why it matters

According to realcommercial.com.au, the campaign adds two sizeable CBD assets to a Pirie Street precinct that JLL’s Ben Parkinson, managing director and head of capital markets for SA/NT, says has drawn over $1 billion of spending on new buildings and big refurbishments. The two buildings sit on adjoining sites and are being pitched as a combined holding with scope for near-term leasing and refurbishment plays alongside longer-term redevelopment options, with the zoning not prescribing a specific building height limit.

The listing gives a buyer the option to reposition the existing assets for investment or simply hold them as an income-generating pair of office buildings. Bought as a pair, the two towers would form a sizeable holding in Adelaide’s central office precinct, combining one largely vacant building with one that already carries an established tenant base.

The six-level tower at 44 Pirie St and the 12-level tower at 50 Pirie St present different propositions for a buyer. The 44 Pirie St building is largely vacant, giving an incoming owner room to reposition or re-lease the space, while 50 Pirie St carries an existing tenant base and an income stream to build on. Colliers SA head of office capital markets and investment services Jordan Schmidt, who is running the sale with colleague Alistair Mackie alongside JLL’s Parkinson and Jack O’Leary, said the two buildings offered different trajectories for an incoming owner.

The capital city zone that covers the Pirie Street sites supports education, accommodation, residential, commercial and mixed-use outcomes subject to consent, and 44 Pirie St’s existing 9B classification approval already provides potential for education and training uses, subject to further approvals.

The numbers

The two towers have a combined land holding of 1,832sqm, more than 12,100sqm of net lettable area between them, and more than 63m of combined frontage to Pirie Street. At 44 Pirie St, occupancy sits at about 27 per cent, with roughly 4,356sqm of space vacant. At 50 Pirie St, occupancy is around 75 per cent, about 1,625sqm remains vacant, and the building generates gross income of around $1.75m a year.

What’s next

Expressions of interest for both the combined offering and the individual towers close on 3 December, with Colliers and JLL running the campaign jointly. The listing is being handled by Colliers’ Schmidt and Alistair Mackie alongside JLL’s Parkinson and Jack O’Leary. Colliers’ Schmidt said acquiring both buildings would give a buyer greater scale and flexibility over the longer term, pointing to leasing and refurbishment opportunities at 44 Pirie St and income growth through further leasing at 50 Pirie St.

The Pirie St campaign lands as Adelaide’s development pipeline keeps moving across the city, including proposals such as the 750 homes and riverside park planned for SOUL at Angle Vale.