• Asset: 45-65 Smith Drive, West Ballina NSW 2478
• Land area: about 8.3 hectares, described as the region's largest contiguous industrial-zoned landholding
• Price: $22 million
• Rate: roughly $265 per sqm of raw land
• Zoning: E4 General Industrial
• Buyer: a joint venture of Centennial and Direct Commercial Property (DCP)
• Agents: JLL (Sebastian Fahey, David Mahood and Dylan McEvoy) with Chris Harley of North Coast Commercial Real Estate
• Plan: Gateway Business Park, 18 freehold lots from 1,500 sqm to 1.5 hectares, delivered in two stages
• Timing: stage one targeted for completion in the third quarter of 2027
• Expected end value: around $70 million once complete

The site fronts the Pacific Highway near the Teven Road interchange on the western edge of Ballina. It is about 4.5 km from the Ballina town centre and 7.5 km from Ballina Byron Gateway Airport. Byron Bay is roughly 30 km to the north and Surfers Paradise is about 110 km up the highway, which puts the estate within easy reach of the southern Gold Coast and its growing trade base.

Road links are the main selling point. The land has direct exposure to the motorway and sits close to the Pacific and Bruxner highways, so trucks can head north to South East Queensland, south towards Sydney or west to Lismore and the inland routes. The wider region has had heavy road spending too. The Woolgoolga to Ballina upgrade of the Pacific Highway, valued at about $4.9 billion, has been completed along with the earlier $640 million Ballina Bypass. The 2023 campaign material put the Northern Rivers population at more than 257,000 people.

Established neighbours along Smith Drive and the surrounding precinct include FedEx, Team Global Express, G. James and InfraBuild.

This is not the first time the land has been offered. It was marketed by JLL and North Coast Commercial in 2023 as The Interchange, with expressions of interest sought either for the whole holding or for individual lots. At that stage it came with a development approval for a bulky goods project of four buildings totalling 29,289 sqm of gross floor area.

The new owners are taking a different path. Instead of a large format retail centre, Smith Drive will be carved into benched, development-ready industrial lots aimed at owner-occupiers and smaller investors. Lot sizes will average about 3,700 sqm, a size that suits trades, transport depots, light manufacturing and service businesses that want their own freehold.

That shift tells its own story. Bulky goods retail has been a tougher sell in regional markets, while demand for small and mid-sized industrial sites has stayed strong right along the east coast.

Centennial brings institutional capital and development experience. DCP brings industrial know-how across Queensland and NSW and will handle the positioning, sales and marketing of the subdivision alongside the appointed agents. DCP reports about $205 million in funds under management and more than $500 million of commercial property transacted.

Centennial chief investment officer David Cupit said competition for serviced industrial lots in the region is strong. He described Ballina as being front and centre of infrastructure investment and population growth in northern NSW.

DCP managing director Ed Bull said the estate offers a chance to deliver industrial land at a scale Ballina has not seen for some time. He added that well-located, development-ready industrial land remains in short supply.

The buyers' logic comes down to a few points:

• the Northern Rivers has very little serviced industrial land ready to build on
• small freehold lots tend to attract deep local demand from businesses tired of renting
• highway exposure gives occupiers signage value as well as logistics access
• staged delivery lets the partners match supply to demand instead of flooding the market

The seller has not been named in reports of the deal. What is clear is that the holding first went to market in 2023 with an approved bulky goods scheme and has now traded to a buyer with a different plan for it. The 2023 campaign gave buyers the option of the whole site or individual lots and it has ended in a single line sale to a developer partnership.

For owners of large regional landholdings, that is a familiar pattern. A one-line sale to a developer usually means a lower headline rate than selling lots one by one, but it hands the infrastructure cost, approvals work and sales risk to someone else.

The clearest local benchmark comes from Ballina Shire Council, which auctioned nine industrial lots about a year ago. All nine sold on the day to a mix of local and interstate buyers. One 4,492 sqm lot reportedly sold for $5.8 million, or about $1,291 per sqm.

Against that number, $22 million for 8.3 hectares looks like raw englobo pricing, as you would expect. The gap between roughly $265 per sqm for unserviced land and well over $1,000 per sqm for a finished lot is where the developer's margin sits. It also has to cover roads, services, earthworks, approvals, holding costs and marketing.

Further north, institutional appetite for South East Queensland industrial assets remains strong. Charter Hall recently agreed to pay $300 million for six Brisbane industrial properties from Garda Property Group, while Spotlight Property Group paid $30 million for a 2.78 hectare site beside Dreamworld at Coomera on the Gold Coast. Smith Drive is a smaller cheque than either, but it shows the same capital looking for land along the M1 corridor.

Industrial land along the Gold Coast and northern NSW corridor has been squeezed for several years. Industrial vacancy across key Gold Coast precincts has been reported as extremely tight this year. When local stock runs short, businesses start looking further down the highway for sites they can own. Ballina, with its airport, highway access and growing population, is one of the obvious places for that demand to land.

An 18-lot estate will not solve the shortage on its own. It will, however, put a meaningful number of freehold sites on the market at once in a region where new supply usually arrives a lot or two at a time. Pricing on the first releases at Gateway Business Park will be watched closely by owners, agents and valuers from Lismore to Tweed Heads.

• Know your buyer. The same land was first pitched with a bulky goods approval. It traded to a group with a different end use, so flexible marketing that shows more than one pathway can widen the buyer pool.
• Infrastructure is the story. Highway frontage, airport distance and freight routes did the heavy lifting in every report on this deal. Put access front and centre.
• Help buyers see the finished estate. Raw paddocks are hard to sell off the plan. A clear lot plan, aerial renders and a simple estate website let owner-occupiers picture their building on a specific lot before civil works start.
• Release in stages. Staged releases protect pricing and create urgency for each round.

The next milestones are the subdivision works and the first lot release at Gateway Business Park, with stage one due in the third quarter of 2027. Delivery depends on completing the infrastructure needed to service each lot, so watch for civil works contracts and any updated approvals through Ballina Shire Council.

Also watch the first lot prices. If they land near the council auction benchmark, 45-65 Smith Drive will have confirmed that serviced industrial land on the NSW North Coast is now priced much closer to the Gold Coast than many owners would have expected a few years ago.