Forza Capital sells Melbourne retail centre for A$117.7m in record private deal
Forza Capital has sold the Epping Home & Life big-box retail centre in Melbourne's northern suburbs for A$117.7 million to a private investor, setting a Victorian record for large format retail. The deal, brokered by JLL, reflects a yield of about 6 per cent and is Australia's largest such transacti
Forza Capital has sold the Epping Home & Life big-box retail centre in Melbourne's northern suburbs for A$117.7 million, in what agent JLL said is Australia's biggest trade of a large format retail property this year. The buyer, a Melbourne-based private investor who outbid real estate investment trusts and wholesale funds, was not named by JLL. The 26,550 square metre (285,800 square foot) centre hosts tenants including TK Maxx, Officeworks and Harvey Norman, and sold at a price reflecting a yield of about 6 per cent.
The deal is the largest ever acquisition of a large format retail asset by a private investor in Victoria, topping a previous high of A$80.5 million set in 2018, according to JLL. Only three such properties have traded above A$100 million nationally in almost four years, the agency said, and national vacancy stands at 2.8 per cent according to both JLL and CBRE. JLL's Stuart Taylor, who managed the sale with Nick Willis and Tom Noonan, said: “For a private investor to set a new Victorian record for the sector against a deep institutional field is a clear marker of how private capital has evolved.”
Epping Home & Life sits at 560-650 High Street, 17 kilometres north of Melbourne's city centre, on a 7.4 hectare (18.3 acre) freehold site with frontages on three streets. It faces the 88,000 square metre Pacific Epping regional mall across the corner of High and Cooper Streets. The centre's 28 tenancies are leased to national and international chains including Planet Fitness, Petbarn and Chemist Warehouse, with a weighted average lease expiry of 7.6 years, JLL said. The property generates about A$7.3 million in annual income with 3 per cent of its space vacant.
The buyer is paying the equivalent of A$4,433 per square metre of lettable area, according to a Mingtiandi calculation. Settlement is scheduled for early next year, once new stores for Rebel Sport and Supercheap Auto are completed, according to Adam Murchie, co-founder and director of Forza Capital. The site falls within Victoria's Activity Centre Zone, which permits buildings of up to 12 storeys, subject to council approval. Taylor said bidders were underwriting that land value alongside the leases. “In effect, the market priced both income security and long-term optionality,” he said.
Forza had purchased the asset from HMC Capital for A$54.3 million in early 2023. The centre then had 22,038 square metres of lettable area across 30 tenancies and a weighted average lease expiry of just 1.7 years. The company has since added more than 7,100 square metres of new tenancy space and moved the centre onto long-term leases. The sale price is 117 per cent above what Forza paid in 2023, while the price per square metre of lettable area has risen 80 per cent from about A$2,462, according to Mingtiandi calculations. Murchie said: “This is a good result for our investors in a difficult investment climate.”
The Epping price tops the A$86 million that Centuria Capital paid BWP Trust in January for Chadstone Homemaker Centre in Melbourne's south-east, a deal which marketing agent Stonebridge Property Group described at the time as Victoria's biggest large format retail transaction since 2021. Chadstone's roughly 19,574 square metres of lettable area put that deal at about A$4,395 per square metre, meaning the Epping buyer paid about 1 per cent more per square metre for a centre further from the city, according to a Mingtiandi calculation. Savills reported the Chadstone sale on a yield of 6.57 per cent.
National vacancy for large format retail stood at 2.8 per cent in the first half of 2026, according to JLL Research, matching the figure in CBRE's Large Format Retail Outlook 2026, which also put national rents 21 per cent above 2020 levels. CBRE said completions fell to a 10-year low in 2025, while JLL estimates new large format floorspace in Melbourne has dropped from a historical average of about 50,000 square metres a year to around 8,000 square metres. Taylor said: “Large format retail has moved firmly into the core of both institutional and private portfolios.”
