Specialist suites, leased before completion

The brief

We underwrote a consulting-suite development in Melbourne's medical specialist heartland — a precinct where specialists concentrate, patients travel, and the difference between a leased suite and an empty one is fit-out quality and management credibility. The asset was designed for a premium specialist tenancy mix, and the program's commercial test was set before we started: full commitment before practical completion, not a marketing campaign afterwards.

The difficulty

Three things made that test demanding. The statutory pathway was genuinely complex — a planning permit for medical use within a commercial precinct, with the usual weight of design, heritage and access considerations, and clinical fit-out implications for things like radiation shielding in imaging-ready suites. The precinct's specialist tenants each required sophisticated fit-outs, and many of the consulting practices were taking suites simultaneously — eight tenancy programs at once, all touching shared services and a shared program. And at the same time, each prospective tenant was making a decade-long decision about their practice's home, which meant every tour of an unfinished building was a negotiation about trust as much as about square metres.

What we did

We engaged the planning and design consultants early and let the statutory pathway shape the base building. Base-building works were programmed with the tenancy fit-outs as one schedule, with shared services, access and sequencing managed centrally.

On leasing, every prospective tenant saw the delivery program, the management framework and the maintenance commitments in plain language. Suites were committed progressively through the build, with each practice's fit-out integrated into the master schedule from the day their lease was signed.

The outcome

The suites reached practical completion fully committed. Every tenancy took possession to its own schedule, and the building entered our managed portfolio with its compliance calendar, maintenance program and asset register live from day one.

From the other side of the program

This program applies our property investment and operations disciplines together. Read the next project, imaging equipment investment, or talk to us about a development or suite opportunity.