The four-level building at 362 Little Collins Street is between Queen and Elizabeth streets, a block from the Bourke Street Mall and only a little further to the Flinders Street Station.

Until Ms Ilhan bought it on Christmas Eve in 2009, the building was part of a portfolio for a proposal known as The Foundry. The proposal was to have included a 38-level office, apartments and shops.

The properties were occupied by the McEwans Hardware store from the 1960s to the 1990s and earmarked in the late 1980s to become a 50-level hotel. The site was later occupied by Bunnings until 2005.

Under Ms Ilhan's ownership, the building has been let and returns annual rent of nearly $400,000. The ground-level retail space facing Little Collins Street is leased to Flight Centre while the three shops facing Foundry Lane are leased to Brookfield Multiplex, which intends to develop part of the Foundry building as a 39-level office tower.

On a 312-square-metre block, 362 Little Collins Street has airspace development potential, too. It is expected to sell for more than $8 million.

Vinci Carbone is representing Ms Ilhan, who has focused on philanthropic events since the 2007 death of her husband, businessman John Ilhan.

After selling Crazy John's, the business founded by her late husband, Ms Ilhan has invested heavily in property and her wealth has grown in recent years. She is believed to be selling the prime CBD property to reinvest in more substantial assets.

Another commercial asset – the Sydney Road, Brunswick, shop where Crazy John's started trading – was also sold by the family.

NEIGHBOURS UNITE TO SELL OUT OF BRIGHTON

In Brighton – the bayside suburb where Patricia Ilhan lives – a developer has paid more than $5 million for a 1256-square-metre site behind the Church Street shops.

The sale of the properties at 8-10 Well Street is another example of neighbours near suburban strips banding sites to attract high-density developers. Two houses are expected to make way for an apartment complex. Well Street is a short walk to the Middle Brighton train station and the beach.

Knight Frank's Danny Clark, Paul Henley and Andrew Hansen were the marketing agents.

A $3 MILLION WALL TROPHY

It is being billed as Australia's most unusual commercial property but a wall on the corner of Flinders Street and Swanston Street – opposite the train station and Federation Square – could also rank as Victoria's most prominent.

The 117-square-metre spread, known as Lot 7, 238 Flinders Street, is an independent freehold title not bound by the owners corporation of the building to which it is attached.

The concrete barrier towers over the Young & Jackson Hotel and St Paul's Cathedral, and can be seen by commuters at the busy St Kilda Road intersection, a traffic sewer.

A 15-year lease has just been signed by Digital Outdoor Media, which pays all outgoings and annual rent of $357,000. The rent is set to increase ever year by CPI and every fifth year to match the market.

At that return, the wall could also be billed as an attainable trophy asset, with a sale price expected to top $3 million.

Burgess Rawson director Graeme Watson is the marketing agent.

CAR DISTRIBUTION FACILITY FOR EX-AGE PRINT PLANT

Entrepreneur Bobby Zagame is the mystery buyer of the former Age printing plant beside the Tullamarine Freeway in Westmeadows.

Mr Zagame, whose diversified portfolio includes property investments and prestige car dealership operations, will use the six-hectare site as a pre-delivery process centre and distribution facility for his automotive group.

The prominent ex-Age spire will be rebranded to Zagame.

The property at 31-69 Western Avenue includes a modern 24,091-square-metre office with a multi-level basement, a 125-bay open-air car park and garden areas providing further development capability.

With the potential to be sold down after a subdivision, the block has a wide 375-metre frontage to the freeway.

More than 300,000 vehicles pass the frontage each week, VicRoads reports.

Colliers International's Tony Iuliano and Marco Sandrin with CBRE's Dean Hunt and Lindsay Davidson represented vendor Fairfax Media.

Vinci Carbone's Frank Vinci and Joseph Carbone represented Mr Zagame, who is understood to be paying about $20 million.

NON-DANDY PLAN SCALED BACK

The developer who in 2012 paid $7.15 million for a former Returned & Services League aged care village in central Dandenong has submitted plans to replace the 9000-square-metre block with a mixed-use complex containing 101 dwellings.

The proposal, which is lower density than a recent one which aimed to fit 264 units on the parcel, includes a medical centre, food and drink premises, a convenience store and a fast-food restaurant.

The triangle site has frontage to Foster Street, a major thoroughfare in the Dandenong Central Activity District. The Dandenong Plaza is a short walk away, as is the Lonsdale Street shopping strip.

UP PROPERTY SELLS EX-CANON HQ FOR $16 MILLION

An offshore investor is paying a speculated $16 million for a Mount Waverley office-warehouse developed for electronics giant Canon in the late 1980s.

The asset, on a 1.8-hectare parcel, includes a four-level 4165-square-metre office building fronting Ricketts Road and a 6045-square-metre industrial warehouse at the rear.

Since Canon moved its headquarters to Docklands a few years ago, the Mount Waverley space has been let to a variety of tenants including Bluescope Steel and Singapore Stock Exchange-listed automotive company YHI Australia.

The investment, when occupied by Canon, was held by the wealthy Heine family, who controlled some of Australia's largest privately owned companies.

Up Property's Adam Davidson purchased 88 Ricketts Road in 2010 and undertook a substantial upgrade and refurbishment. Based on the property's annual rental return of about $1.3 million, it sold on a yield of 8.1 per cent.

Steve Messina and Dominic Gibson of Melbourne Acquisitions represented Up Property, which, just a few months ago, sold a Noble Park development site to an interstate developer for about $20 million.

Email: marcpallisco@gmail.com

Twitter: @marcpallisco