Investor confidence returns to Melbourne with $327.5 million shopping centre deal

Investor confidence is returning to Victoria, with MA Financial exchanging contracts to acquire a 50% interest in Melbourne's major regional shopping centre, The Glen, for $327.5 million in one of the city's largest retail property transactions this year. 

The transaction follows a series of major retail asset sales in Melbourne, with $2.8 billion of regional and sub-regional shopping centre transactions completed or under contract across 2025/26, underscoring strengthening investor demand for Victorian retail assets.

CBRE’s Head of Retail Capital Markets – Pacific, Simon Rooney, exclusively managed The Glen transaction on behalf of Perth-based vendor, Perron Group. 

The transaction forms part of a $497.5 million acquisition program by MA Financial, which includes ECQ LFR in Sydney and Taigum Central in Brisbane. Those centres were acquired from Vicinity Centres earlier this month, also through CBRE.

CBRE’s Mr Rooney said, “The Glen represented an exceptional, high-quality opportunity to secure a 50% interest in a major Melbourne metropolitan retail asset, while also allowing Perron Group to complete a highly strategic divestment, at premium pricing.”

“Investor sentiment is gradually shifting into positive territory for Melbourne, as retail supply nationally reduces. We're seeing counter-cyclical buyers willing to invest on the assumption that conditions will improve following the upcoming state election and a potential change of government,” Mr Rooney added.

Australia's retail sector has continued to lead commercial real estate investment activity, in 2026 to date, over $4.5 billion in regional shopping centres have been completed. Retail demand and fundamentals are primarily driven by constrained new supply, high immigration, and the sector's resilient, robust trading performance.

This followed record 2025 transaction volumes of approximately $12.7 billion nationally, including $6.9 billion in regional shopping centre deals.

The Glen shopping centre, which is jointly owned and managed by Vicinity Centres, is located approximately 26 kilometres south-east of the Melbourne CBD. 

Occupying a 7.2-hectare site at the junction of two major arterial roads, Springvale Road and High Street Road, the centre has a total gross lettable area of 76,471 sqm and is anchored by David Jones and three exceptionally performing supermarkets – Coles, Woolworths and Aldi – together with a Target discount department store.

The centre is underpinned by robust annual retail sales exceeding $575 million, attracts almost 15 million visitors per annum, and draws from a catchment of more than 300,000 residents. It underwent a $430 million redevelopment, completed in 2020.