Quintessential Equity lists commercial office building at 39 Brisbane Avenue, Barton for sale

The A-grade building at 39 Brisbane Avenue, Barton is currently leased to tenants such as the Australian Medical Association, Spirit Super and BAE Systems.

The seller, private equity firm Quintessential Equity, bought the property for $16.5 million in 2017, when it was 40 per cent vacant.

Following a significant refurbishment, the four-level office block is now 100 per cent leased and has a weighted average lease expiry (WALE) by income of just over six years.

Quintessential Equity CEO Russell Bullen said Canberra's favourable office market conditions, such as some of the lowest vacancy rates in the country, plus strong unsolicited interest on the building made now the right time to sell.

"We certainly received a lot of interest even without having the property on the market," he said.

"I think off the back of Canberra being one of the strongest performing office markets in the country, there are a lot of buyers that [are] very keen to get access to good quality property with long-term income and that's been always our goal - to create long-term income for all of our assets."

The office building includes more than 4800 square metres of lettable area across three levels and has achieved a five-star energy base building rating under the National Australian Built Environment Rating System.

It's not the first Canberra office building Quintessential Equity has flipped following a makeover.

The firm sold 2-6 Bowes Street in Phillip in 2017 for $58.4 million after purchasing the Woden office block in 2012 for $14 million.

Mr Bullen said the firm recently raised $135 million of capital that will be used to acquire office and industrial properties across Australia.

He said Canberra is an area of interest for future investments.

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"I would love to buy something in Canberra if we could but opportunities are pretty thin," he said.

"And clearly for us, we are a buyer that does look for intrinsic value in the asset."

The sale of 39 Brisbane Avenue is being marketed through Colliers and JLL.

Colliers director of capital markets Matthew Winter said the listing had received a strong number of inquiries and inspections.

"It's one of the few parliamentary assets that's been offered to the market publicly in the last 24 months," he said.

"Obviously Canberra's performing very strongly compared to our national counterparts, so it's an attractive proposition to a lot of syndicates, family offices [an investment firm managing a family's wealth] and institutional buyers."

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