• Asset: 410 Ann Street, Brisbane City, a two-tower office complex, plus the neighbouring Cathedral Square car park
• Price: about $124 million (contracts exchanged)
• Yield: 11 per cent on a fully leased basis
• Rate: around $6,000 per sqm, or under $4,000 per sqm once excess parking is stripped out
• Office space: a little over 20,000 sqm across the two towers
• Site: 4,052 sqm freehold with 139 car bays
• Car park: 572 bays on an 8,949 sqm leasehold running to April 2108
• Occupancy: about 90 per cent leased, weighted average lease expiry of around four years
• Buyer: Alceon Group
• Seller: a Mirvac-managed fund
• Agents: CBRE's Peter Chapple and Bruce Baker with JLL's Paul Noonan and Jack Sullivan

410 Ann Street sits at the top end of the CBD, close to Cathedral Square and about 375 metres from Central Station. It is also near the Cross River Rail project, which is set to change how a lot of workers reach this part of the city once it opens.

The complex is made up of two office towers on a single freehold site. Reports put the building's NABERS ratings at 5.5 stars for energy and 3.5 stars for water, which is respectable for an older asset and important for any tenant with sustainability targets.

The tenant list is a mix of government, services and healthcare. It includes the Public Trustee of Queensland, First Parking, Mipac, Sonic Healthplus and Dye & Durham. Sonic Healthplus signed on as a key tenant in an earlier leasing campaign, which shows the building can still attract established names.

The car park is the part of the deal that could easily be overlooked. Cathedral Square adds 572 bays on a long leasehold that runs for more than 80 years. Combined with the 139 bays inside 410 Ann Street, the package controls 711 bays in a part of the CBD where parking is scarce. That is a big reason the effective rate on the office space falls below $4,000 per sqm once the parking value is separated out.

Alceon is best known as one of Australia's larger non-bank lenders to developers, but it has also been quietly building a Brisbane office book. This is reported to be its 15th office investment in the city and its Queensland team now manages more than $1.25 billion in real estate. The purchase was funded through Alceon's network of high-net-worth and wholesale investors.

Managing director and Queensland head Todd Pepper described the asset as well located but under-managed for some time. His plan, in short, is hands-on: spend money on the building, improve the tenant experience and lease the space into a market where good-quality floors are getting harder to find. He also pointed to Alceon's local presence as the reason it could move quickly, because it already knows the tenants, the agents and the competing buildings.

The business plan is fairly simple:

• refurbish the lobbies, common areas and vacant floors to a contemporary B-plus standard
• use the lease expiries to reset rents, with almost half the floor space up for renewal in 2028 and 2029
• close the gap between today's below-market passing rents and what refurbished space can achieve
• hold an asset bought at a substantial discount to what it would cost to build today

That lease expiry profile is the key. To a passive owner, half a building rolling over within three years is a risk. To a buyer planning to refurbish, it is an opportunity to re-lease upgraded floors at higher rents.

Mirvac is exiting through a separately managed account. Neither side has said what the fund originally paid for the property. The sale fits a broader pattern of large managers trimming older, non-core office holdings and keeping their capital for prime towers or other sectors.

A secondary building with rolling leases needs active management and a capital budget. For an institutional owner focused on its best assets, selling to a specialist who wants exactly that kind of work can make more sense than funding a refurbishment itself. The 11 per cent yield shows the seller accepted a price that leaves plenty of room for the buyer's upside.

Brisbane has had a busy year for office sales, but the prices show a clear split between prime and everything else.

• 480 Queen Street: Dexus and its wholesale fund sold the premium-grade tower for about $700 million earlier this year, at a rate per square metre roughly double that of 410 Ann Street.
• 133 Mary Street: Quintessential Equity paid $81.8 million in September for a tower that was about two-thirds occupied, at around $6,200 per sqm. The buyer plans a refurbishment.
• 10 Browning Street, South Brisbane: a Taiwanese health supplements group paid $81.1 million this month at an 8.4 per cent yield.

410 Ann Street lines up closely with 133 Mary Street on rate and strategy. Both are older buildings bought by private-capital managers who intend to spend money and lift rents. Taken together, they suggest the market has found a price for value-add Brisbane office of roughly $6,000 per sqm.

The case for buying secondary office in Brisbane rests on how tight the market has become. Property Council data put Brisbane CBD vacancy at 10.2 per cent in July, the lowest of any Australian capital city. CBRE figures show Brisbane recorded the strongest rental growth of any Australian CBD in the year to June 2026, with prime net effective rents up about 16 per cent. CBRE also expects prime vacancy to fall to around 5 per cent by 2028.

When prime space runs short, tenants start looking one rung down. A well-refurbished B-plus building near a major rail station can win those tenants, especially at a meaningful discount to prime rents. That is the gap Alceon is targeting.

The flip side is that an 11 per cent yield reflects real work and real risk. Leasing, capital spend and timing all have to go right. Higher bond rates have also lifted the cost of capital this year, which is part of why secondary assets are trading at such wide yields compared with trophy towers.

• Lease expiries can be a selling point. Near-term vacancy puts some buyers off, but it is exactly what value-add buyers want. Show the upside clearly.
• Location still carries the price. Proximity to Central Station and Cross River Rail was front and centre in how this deal was described.
• Parking has real value. Separating the car park value changed the story on the office rate. Owners should know what every part of their asset is worth.
• Buyers need to see the finished product. When the pitch is "refurbish and re-lease", tenants and investors are being asked to picture floors that don't exist yet. Renders of upgraded lobbies and fit-outs, along with a clear leasing campaign, help close that gap.

The first thing to watch is settlement, followed by how quickly the lobby and common area works begin. After that, the real test is leasing. The renewals due in 2028 and 2029 will show whether refurbished B-plus space on the CBD's northern edge can capture the rental growth that prime buildings have enjoyed.

It is also worth watching whether other private-capital groups follow Alceon and 133 Mary Street's new owner into older Brisbane towers. If prime vacancy keeps falling, there may be more competition for these buildings and the 11 per cent yield on 410 Ann Street could look cheap in hindsight.

For now, the deal puts a clear number on Brisbane's value-add office market and shows that investors are willing to back the city's office recovery well beyond its newest towers.