As the final concrete pour settles on the 17th floor of Canberra's most upmarket apartments, another premium lakeside site goes under the hammer this morning with a question mark over the sale's timing.
Billed as the Kingston foreshore's best site, the two blocks for auction, with water frontage on three sides, should fetch about $10million and $16 million.
In Acton, a two-storey penthouse nearing completion with views to the National Library and the governor-general's residence is yours for $4.5million.
With a 40-seat cinema, a ''park in the sky'' 2000sqm of trees, grass and parkland on the fourth storey and a piazza with fruit trees on the ground, the ApARTments will be completed in April.
The main penthouse will feature a garden and has views in every direction, while other apartments overlook the Australian National University and surrounding apartment towers on one side and lake on the other.
Canberra's Molonglo Group and Macquarie Bank have sold 151 apartments with 38 remaining in the project.
Gross sales total more than $116million. Projected sales are $165 million. The overall NewActon development will be worth more than $350 million.
While bank finance is tight and a land auction at Kingston only a week ago raised $7.65 million, CB Richard Ellis ACT managing director Nick McDonald Crowley said The Island sites would be keenly contested at 11am.
CBRE advised the Land Development Agency on the auction's timing and Mr McDonald Crowley said while the market was not as robust as it was in 2007, there was still keen interest. ''The Government is not undersupplying or oversupplying the market.''
Colliers International ACT chief executive Paul Powderly, whose firm is representing prospective buyers, said he expected the 3681sqm site to sell for $9 million to $10 million and the 5216sqm site to go for $15 million to $16million. ''In better times it would go for $20 million,'' he said.
Mr Powderly said diversified property group Stockland had paid about $275,000 a unit when it bought Kingston's waterfront site in 2003 for $27 million.
He said today's auction would probably achieve $130,000 a site.
Mr McDonald Crowley said the Government could not have released the site earlier and over the 15-year life of developing Kingston foreshore the market would not always be at its best.
''Having said that, we're confident from the interest shown, we're buoyed by what happened at Kingston last week, it's reflective of balanced supply.''
He said 75 groups had registered for the auction, but did not expect there would be that many bidding.
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