I've worked in Melbourne's commercial property market since 1983 — with established firms, then independently from 1990, and as Centrepoint Projects since 1999 — as builder, developer, and owner, across acquisitions, designs, construction, leasing, and sales. That experience is now available to a small number of clients each year.
Pictured: a recent commercial development — full case study below
Most clients coming to Centrepoint Projects are stepping into commercial property development for the first time — a business diversifying capital, or a company wanting a purpose-built premises of its own. Forty-plus years across every stage of the cycle means that unfamiliarity is met with real, practical experience.
That experience includes some of the hardest work in the industry: acting on behalf of a bank and its administrators to manage distressed commercial property portfolios, auditing partly built projects, and carrying them through to completion and sale. With construction and development businesses under real financial pressure today, that background counts for more than ever — recognising a project in trouble, and knowing how to bring it back under control, isn't theoretical.
Once a site is selected, Centrepoint Projects manages what comes next — engaging the right consultants, architect, town planning, environmental, and structural engineering, and carrying the project through town planning and construction approvals with the relevant authorities.
In Melbourne's commercial property market since 1983. From 1990, worked on behalf of a major bank and accounting firm managing distressed commercial property portfolios under bank and administrator control — completing partly built projects through to sale. Centrepoint Projects since 1999.
Engagements are structured as separable stages — useful whether you're deciding if a site is worth pursuing, or you already have a builder on site and just want someone independent watching the claims.
An experienced read on whether a site or opportunity stacks up, so you commit with confidence — before design and consultant costs are on the table.
Entry pointConstruction cost, engineering risk, program, and rental or resale analysis — the groundwork that sets whether a deal works before design begins.
Once a site is selected, engaging the right consultants — architect, town planning, environmental, structural — and managing town planning and construction approvals with the relevant authorities.
Coming in once design exists, to run the tender and select your builder.
Independent oversight of an appointed builder through construction — progress claims, variations, and program, assessed the way a builder would assess them.
The full arc, acquisition to completion — for a client who wants one point of accountability across the entire project.
Full cycleEach shows a different part of what I now offer as separate, independent services.
Site acquisition support, appointment and management of the architect, a full feasibility covering construction cost, fees, and value-managed engineering design, rental analysis, program, and leasing marketing. Centrepoint Projects also acted as builder, applying value management and construction technique expertise through delivery — followed by the leasing and eventual sale of the completed asset as an investment.
Engaged by the client to acquire a site and construct a purpose-built six-level office building for their own business use — following the success of the process, they diversified into the multi-million dollar development described here. An excellent client relationship carried the project through a COVID-affected lease-up period.
A petrol station and convenience development including additional retail, an automatic and manual bay car wash, a separate dog wash, and a diesel canopy sized for large trucks.
An unexpected groundwater table, discovered after construction had begun, halted the underground fuel tank installation. I re-engineered the installation in-house — a temporary steel sheet-piling retention system with continual water extraction — completing the tanks safely before removing the works and obtaining water authority approval to let groundwater return to its natural state. The issue added two months but ran alongside, not instead of, the main building works. The client, an independent owner-operator, has run a thriving business from the finished site ever since.
An existing investment property in Melbourne's eastern suburbs, held within the Centrepoint Projects portfolio, now sits within new town planning controls under the Victorian Government's Activity Centre program — part of a state-wide push to allow higher-density development around well-served train and tram stations. Centrepoint Projects has developed an in-house feasibility scheme to test the site's potential under the new controls.
Preliminary assessment points to a mixed-use residential and commercial development with basement parking, at a height of between nine and twelve levels — subject to authority approval. The assessment is live and ongoing, and stands as a working example of the same feasibility discipline available to clients assessing their own sites.
Engagements are agreed individually, reflecting the scope and complexity of each project. Get in touch to discuss where you are and where I could join in.