JWLand buys Belconnen Central at block 17 section 152 from Suburban Land Agency for $20.5 million

Sold by the Suburban Land Agency, the 7125-square-metre site is a public car park but will become a mixed-use, all-electric precinct.

JWLand national head of development Michael Prendergast said is it still early days but initial thoughts for the development are to build multiple towers with up to 550 apartments.

"It'll be maybe three towers, potentially more, but we haven't spent too much time designing anything at the moment," he said.

Mr Prendergast said the site, block 17 section 152, has a maximum height of 21 storeys for a single building, or up to 24 storeys if multiple towers are built.

Known as Belconnen Central, the site on the corner of Swanson Court and Chandler Street is zoned for a variety of uses including residential units, hotel accommodation, serviced apartments and shops.

Mr Prendergast said the development is likely to be majority residential, but demand would ultimately determine the mix.

"We'll go out and spend a bit of time on the site, we'll engage an architect and a raft of other consultants, we will engage with the community council up there," he said.

"We haven't done any projects in Belconnen to date, so there'll be some faces that we will need to meet.

"Then we anticipate probably in the next couple of months, we'd see the first lot of community engagement happening on site and then we can start to present the design."

Belconnen Central will be an all-electric precinct, which includes the requirement for electric vehicle charging units for each dwelling.

"We've already started having conversations with some of the large energy providers about how we can partner up and then what will come from that is other packages that they're able to offer us that can then flow back down to the buyer," Mr Prendergast said.

There is also a requirement for JWLand to retain the current number of public car parking spots on the site and to offer a number of affordable dwellings.

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Eight local developers registered to bid on the block, but three main parties battled it out in the 50-minute auction.

Josh Reid, director of residential land at Colliers, which marketed the sale, said a 550-unit block was a large release for Canberra and an attractive offering to the developers.

"We had a good number of registered bidders and given the strength in the market and demand for development sites in the town centres at the moment, it certainly was active like we expected," he said.

It's not the only large residential development on the cards for Belconnen. In January, a Sydney developer submitted an application to build 315 units on a 6049-square-metre site next to the Belconnen Markets, which changed hands last year for $14 million.

Late last year, Geocon topped out the fifth and final tower of its Republic Precinct, which comprises 334 apartments.

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