60-66 Waterloo Road in Macquarie Park (Image: CBRE)
Vita Partners, the life sciences and R&D real estate joint venture of fund manager Warburg Pincus and Australian builder Lendlease, has acquired Stockland’s 60-66 Waterloo Road complex in Sydney’s Macquarie Park, marking the platform’s first property buy in Australia.
No price was disclosed for the freehold asset, which spans 17,407 square metres (187,368 square feet) of net lettable area across two buildings. Marketing agents CBRE and Cushman & Wakefield said the 90 percent-occupied complex generates passing net operating income of A$8.1 million ($5.7 million).
“We are thrilled to acquire this high-quality asset in Macquarie Park, one of Australia’s pre-eminent life science and technology precincts,” Vita CEO Bart Price said. “This acquisition is consistent with our strategy to create spaces and vibrant ecosystems where innovative companies can thrive. This further strengthens our presence in the APAC region, and we look forward to creating more value for both our investors and occupiers.”
The purchase complements Vita’s management of 1 Richardson Place in nearby North Ryde on behalf of medical charity John James Foundation. That two-building property spans 5,975 square metres and is fully leased to life sciences and R&D tenants, including a food research company.
Research Precinct
The Waterloo Road campus occupies an 18,520 square metre site with dual street frontages and parking at a ratio of one space per 35 square metres. The buildings, completed in 2001 and 2007, have a weighted average lease expiry of three and a half years.
Vita Partners CEO Bart Price
The 60 Waterloo Road building houses Laverty Pathology’s principal North Ryde laboratory, together with supporting offices and warehouse space. The multi-let property at 66 Waterloo Road counts medical technology group Becton Dickinson, industrial automation specialist Yokogawa and Johnson & Johnson among its occupiers, with a new 10-year lease covering the ground floor.
Steven Kearney, Cushman & Wakefield’s capital markets head for New South Wales, described the complex during last year’s sales campaign as a high-quality, income-producing asset with strong fundamentals, pointing to growing capital demand for exposure to innovation property.
The property is within the Macquarie Park Innovation District, some 600 metres (656 yards) from Macquarie Park metro station and 800 metres from Macquarie University station. The precinct is Australia’s largest office market outside a central business district and is home to more than 180 life sciences, technology and digital companies, according to CBRE.
Expected withdrawals of older Macquarie Park offices are set to compress vacancy rates below the previous cyclical low of 4.6 percent in 2020, creating scope for rental growth as properties are converted to other uses, according to Mitch Noonan, a director on CBRE’s office capital markets team.
ASX-listed Stockland developed the newer 66 Waterloo building in 2007, while the adjacent property dates to 2001. The developer subsequently held the pair as a single office investment before putting the complex on the market in September 2025 with a reported book value of A$117 million.
Regional Buildout
Vita Partners first acquisition in Australia comes after the company announced in April that it had been appointed to manage 1 Richardson Place, a 6,000 square metre life sciences complex in North Ryde, New South Wales on behalf of John James Foundation.
Warburg Pincus and Lendlease formed their Singapore-headquartered life sciences venture in July 2024, with each partner providing half of the co-investment capital as the platform raised third-party funds. The business adopted the Vita Partners name in February 2025 after former Abu Dhabi Investment Council executive Price took charge at the start of that year.
Vita achieved immediate scale a month after its formation by acquiring a S$1.6 billion (then $1.2 billion) portfolio of Singapore business parks and specialist facilities from entities linked to Blackstone and Soilbuild chairman Lim Chap Huat. The 4.5 million square foot (418,000 square metre) portfolio lifted the platform’s assets under management above S$2 billion.
The venture agreed last October to sell three fully leased properties from that portfolio to CapitaLand Ascendas REIT for S$565.8 million. The disposal of Tuas Connection, 2 Pioneer Sector 1 and the Qualcomm Building marked Vita’s second exit and reflected its strategy of returning capital after completing individual asset plans.
Vita’s first disposal was Leaf Minatomirai, a former Yokohama shopping mall repositioned as an R&D workplace and sold to undisclosed buyers in March 2025. The property had seeded Lendlease and PGGM’s S$1 billion Asia Pacific innovation and life sciences partnership, with the Dutch pension manager holding 85 percent and Lendlease owning 15 percent before Leaf’s ownership vehicle was folded into Vita’s initial portfolio.
Lendlease and PGGM extended their relationship last week by launching a Japan value-add partnership with investment capacity of up to JPY 120 billion ($738.8 million). The vehicle will target logistics and office assets in Greater Tokyo and Greater Osaka, with Sydney-based Lendlease retaining a 5 percent co-investment as its Vita venture expands in Australia.