St Hilliers Property has acquired a prime commercial development site in the much sought after Macquarie Park precinct at North Ryde.

The development site, which is located at 84-92 Talavera Road, Macquarie Park, was purchased from Allianz Australia Insurance for $23.25 million.

The Talavera Road site has development approval for the construction of a complex of three buildings with NLA of 24,755 square metres of commercial office space and parking for 356 cars. The site has an existing commercial office / warehouse building, which will be demolished to make way for the new development. The development when completed will have a value of circa $120 million.

St Hilliers Property Chief Executive Officer, Tim Casey said that the property, which is opposite to the Macquarie Shopping Centre, is ideally located to take advantage of major infrastructure improvements.

"Improved accessibility to the Macquarie Park business precinct following the completion of the Epping to Chatswood railway line and the Lane Cove Tunnel will strengthen the demand for new A-Grade accommodation in this area and the DA approval in place will allow certainty around timing of commitment of construction," Mr Casey said.

"The area has seen major changes from market gardens in the 1950s, to large scale industrial buildings and more recently to leading edge business park buildings. It is now the favoured location for the headquarters of major multinational companies such as Sony, Ericsson, Microsoft, Siemens, Sanyo, Proctor + Gamble, Sanofi-Aventis, Johnson + Johnson and Optus.

"We believe the market will show further growth during the development period. To ensure we maximise the development's appeal to tenants and end owners alike we will undertake some design revisions to the existing DA, particularly with regard to environmental performance of the buildings," Mr Casey said.

St Hilliers strategy for the property will be to seek pre-commitment for all or part of the development prior to construction.

The Talavera Road property is the first acquisition to be made by St Hilliers newly formed property venture with Macquarie Bank. Macquarie has made an equity investment in St Hilliers Property to assist with its growth plans in the property development and funds management area of the business.

The Talavera Road property deal was negotiated through Malcom Tyson and Mark Martin, of Colliers International, and settlement is scheduled for February 2007.