The $200 million Century City office project at 100 St Georges Terrace has secured its first tenant this week with Japanese oil and gas company INPEX signing on to lease 7,000 square metres, or 25 per cent of the building.
IMPEX will move into the top levels, 19 to 22, when the building is complete in early 2009, taking a 10-year lease.
Axiom and its joint venture partner, Industry Superannuation Property Trust, believe the deal reflects the quality of the 28,000sq m building and its appeal to blue chip international tenants.
Knight Frank national leasing director Greg McAlpine said the deal was the first of many currently being negotiated for the Century City office tower.
The state-of-the-art building would be the first major new office tower out of the ground in an extremely tight office market, Mr McAlpine said, with its owners expecting the building to be fully leased well before its projected completion date.
“The office tower will include 17 levels of office space with floor plates of approximately 1,765sq m,” he said.
“It will be the first new building built to 4.5 star ABGR and four-star Green Star in the CBD, and will capitalise on the significant advances in security, communications and remote technology that have evolved since Perth’s last office towers were completed.”
When fully occupied, the building is expected to accommodate up to 3,000 office workers.
Century City will also feature four floors or 15,000sq m of up-market fashion and food retailing fronting the Hay Street Mall.
Anchor tenant Woolworths signed a 20-year lease agreement with Pivot Group in 2005 to occupy 2,500sq m of retail space at ground level.
New tenant INPEX has been involved in offshore oil and gas exploration in the North-West shelf since 1989 and has a number of projects in Australia, including offshore interests in Western Australia, Victoria and Tasmania.
Its Ichthys LNG project in the Browse Basin off Broome is estimated to cost $8 billion alone if and when it goes into production.
The company currently occupies an office at Exchange Plaza, at 2 The Esplanade.
