[+] Millennial Trio Behind Sydney’s Newest Developer

Three young blokes walk away from well-paid jobs with property development heavy-hitters at the big end of town and into … well, not quite a pub. It seems the trio—Jack Montgomery, Matthew Rawlinson and Robert McLean—had a bigger thirst to quench. They do, however, admit strolling into Byron Bay’s Stone &amp; Wood brewery tasting room for a couple of refreshing ales several months later. But by then they had already laid some sizeable foundations for their diversified real assets business, Belingbak. If all goes to plan, Belingbak’s impressive debut development play —pulling together seven adjoining properties along tightly-held Pitt Street in Sydney’s CBD—will realise a $450-million, 56-storey first-to-market hotel and residential tower. Not that any of that is new to Montgomery, Rawlinson and McLean. Life before Belingbak involved roles with property giants Mirvac and Brookfield in which they led more than $10 billion of Australian real estate acquisitions and developments across all major asset classes. But for these glass-half-full guys there was a growing urge to fill it the rest of the way—their way. “The three of us came together with a mutually agreed concept that what we’d been doing wasn’t quite hitting the mark,” Montgomery says. “From years of working in institutional property we felt there was a gap in the market. “We wanted to create a locally-owned firm that was unrestrained from legacy systems and processes, enabling us to really have some punch and seize opportunity where we saw fit.” Clearly, they have come out of their new development corner swinging. Belingbak’s Pitt Street proposal— a joint venture with Melbourne-based developer ICD Property —is among a number of planned tower projects in the CBD tech corridor. If approved, it will rise almost 160m into the harbour city’s skyline from the 1140sq m amalgamated site at 372-382A Pitt Street. ▲ Belingbak is partnering with Melbourne-developer ICD Property on a 56-storey tower in Sydney's Pitt Street. Topping the tower in the Woods Bagot-designed concept plans will be 28 apartments sitting above 304 hotel rooms with a ground-floor retail precinct. It is ICD’s second project along Pitt Street, where it has also teamed with Singapore-based First Sponsor Group up the road for a $762-million, 50-storey tower above Sydney’s Tattersall’s Club . The revival of one of Sydney’s earliest named streets also includes Oxford Properties Group’s 39-storey Parkline Place office tower above the Pitt Street Metro Station; Mirvac’s $1.5-billion commercial precinct with a 60,000sq m office tower at 55 Pitt Street; and the approved proposal by Han’s Group for twin 80-storey mixed-use skyscrapers. Montgomery says in establishing a pipeline for Belingbak, he and his partners were drawn to central Sydney’s tower cluster planning framework. “We started to look at some of these zoned areas, which brought us to Pitt Street and particularly a row of old three-storey commercial terraces. “Many developers had come and gone trying to unlock this site. “But we just started one by one tracking down owners, both domestically and internationally … through our network of industry contacts and knocking on doors of existing tenants to open a communication channel. “We worked our way from the south of the site to the north where we secured deals with the last two owners—one of them that nobody had managed to track down before—and that unlocked the site. ▲ Persistence paid off for Belingbak in its quest to join the dots for the Pitt Street site. “It took the best part of 12 months and the deal died three or four times before it got a start … but it was all about having that patience, determination and thirst to succeed as a young development and investment team.” In Byron Bay a few months down the track, they found themselves sealing an off-market deal to buy a former ice works site across the road from the town’s original Stone &amp; Wood brewery. “We’d spent a bit of time together over the years at the old brewery so we were familiar with the area,” Montgomery muses. The opportunistic acquisition aligned perfectly with Belingbak’s strategic focus on “sheds and beds” development and investment. “We view ourselves as a group that can truly pioneer and have ownership on that emerging sector applying our unique individual skill sets and previous mixed-use experience across multiple asset classes,” he says. The circa 5000sq m parcel in the Byron Arts and Industry Estate is earmarked for a $25-million project designed by DFJ Architects—well known for its local work on The Farm and Habitat—that “champions a new era of industry in Byron”. It is touted as a “home to vintners, makers and artisans … a place for people who care deeply about what they do and how they do it”. ▲ An artist's impression of Belingbak’s planned Byron Bay development. “We see Byron Bay as a regional town transitioning to more of a micro-city … and given the macro demographics and how the town is rapidly changing, we have seized an opportunity to position ourselves there,” Montgomery says. “There’s a real need for industrial assets that keep industry at the forefront of these towns with swelling populations.” He says the Byron play will deliver a mixed-use light industrial development asset that Belingbak will hold with a view to potentially seeding a fund and applying the same model to other urban infill centres elsewhere. “We definitely want to be in the space of innovation, we don’t just want to rinse and repeat—that’s something that really resonates with us and where we can see continuing value going forward,” McLean says. Rawlinson adds: “A big part of that is identifying changing shifts in demographics. “That’s something we really want to hone in on and that’s how we can see Belingbak gaining a competitive advantage, not just doing what everyone else is doing but by looking at the macro levels in the market and identifying those shifts in demographics and where there’s dislocation that needs a solution.” In a little more than 18 months the trio have put together a burgeoning pipeline of five development works in progress across the eastern seaboard, including Belingbak’s two “live” projects in Sydney and Byron with a combined end value nudging $500 million. And now with the reopening of borders around the country, they are also casting their gaze further north and west. A number of Brisbane assets are on their radar and they also are in due diligence on two development sites in Perth where they have already set up a branch office. ▲ The Belingbak trio: Jack Montgomery, Matthew Rawlinson and Robert McLean. Growth and positive change are at the core of the creation of Belingbak, a First Peoples’ word and the name of Montgomery’s family home where he grew up. “There was a tree the house was built around and the indigenous name for the growth on it was Belingbak,” he says. “It worked on a number of different levels for us and we thought it was appropriate to govern our business moving forward.” McLean says the company has established a reconciliation action plan and is in the process of getting conditional endorsement from Reconciliation Australia. “We’ve begun the journey of incorporating that into our business,” he says. “The big thing for us is that we develop on land and so we want to be the best possible custodians of the land we do develop on … so for us it’s just about being humble, open-minded, learning from the First People, their culture and land practices, and giving back where we can.” You are currently experiencing The Urban Developer Plus (TUD+), our premium membership for property professionals. 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Phil Bartsch
Thu 24 Mar 22

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