Argus building poised for reincarnation while Fairfax flogging off its printing press land holdings

Fairfax Media has put its news printing facilities in NSW and Victoria up for sale with reported hopes of about $90 million.

The two newspaper printing plants will be redundant by mid-2014 with both sites being sold on vacant possession delayed settlement terms.

CBRE and Colliers International have been appointed to conduct the campaign.

CBRE has the Chullora, Sydney site which includes the existing industrial complex of 37,600 square metres on a land parcel of 10.2 hectares.

Colliers International will be seeking the buyers for The Age Print Centre, Tullamarine site which includes an existing 24,000?square metre industrial complex on a land parcel of 5.9 hectares.

Meanwhile the entreprenuer Shesh Ghalel is set to shortly start his $40 million redevelopment of Melbourne’s landmark Argus building, after years of abandoned starts on the project.

The 87-year-old heritage-listed building on the corner of La Trobe and?Elizabeth streets has been boarded up, but used for music fesitvals after significant structural repairs and asbestos removal.

The building has been in decrepit state for decades. Its first tenant, The Argus daily newspaper, closed in 1956.

The Herald and Weekly Times Group bought the Argus newspaper along with the building in 1957 and later closed the newspaper down and sold the building.

Ghalel, chief executive of the Melbourne Institute of Technology, paid $15 million for the building in 2010, but works were delayed in part because of a downturn in tertiary education.

The fit-out is expected to cost $25?million with another $15 million spent on structural works. 

“I understand the public interest in this property and we hope to rebuild our goodwill with the city, we are also keen to see it brought back to life,” he told The Australian Financial Review.

The six-storey building will have 9,000 square metres of space hosting 5,000 students.

Ghalel said enrolments in MIT’s English language courses had jumped 300%, the bulk of students coming from China and Vietnam.

The Argus building, designed by Godfrey Spowers, is listed on the Victorian heritage register as a major inter-war office building.

It also made the 2012 National Trust list of the country’s top 10 “heritage at risk” sites.