One of Civic's newest commercial buildings has been listed for sale, just over a year after construction on the site was completed.
The Morris Property Group's One City Hill, which overlooks the City Hill parkland, was completed in mid 2025, after six years of delays.
Situated between Edinburgh Avenue and Vernon Circle, it is set to become home to more than 1200 Department of Infrastructure employees, with the government committing to a $315 million 20-year lease which will begin in July 2027.
The seven-storey building was designed to outperform the Commonwealth government sustainability targets, with a targeted 5.5-star NABERS energy rating and climate active carbon neutral certification.
It includes 35,216 square metres of office space, 771 square metres of dedicated retail space, and a three-level, 876-bay basement car park, providing a number of income streams.
Morris Property Group chief operating officer James Morris said the building reflected the developer's commitment to delivering projects that provide certainty, quality and long-term value.
"The development brings together contemporary workplace design, sustainability and functionality to create an asset that supports the evolving needs of government, occupiers and investors while contributing to the future growth of Canberra's city centre," Mr Morris said.
The building will be sold through an expression of interest campaign run by Colliers' Mathew Winter and Paul Powderly. The campaign will end on Tuesday, September 22.
The listing comes just over a week after the Property Council revealed the office vacancy rate in Civic had increased 12 per cent over the past six months.
More than 26 per cent of office space in Civic is now unoccupied, according to the council's Office Market report, the third-highest vacancy rate for the city centre on record.
About 40 per cent of One City Hill is currently leased. However, Mr Powderly, the national director of development at Colliers, said there was still demand for sustainably-built office spaces.
"We are witnessing an evolution of the Canberra CBD, as new office supply driven by the Commonwealth Government's sustainability targets and the consolidation of accommodation footprints creates a clear divergence within the market," he said.
"There is strong demand for premium-style and A-grade assets that meet the future requirements of occupiers while older B- and C-grade buildings are experiencing softer conditions as long-standing Commonwealth tenants transition into higher-quality workplaces."
Morris Property Group purchased the site, which had previously been a car park, for $85 million in 2018, with plans to build a residential complex with more than 1000 apartments.
The building was intended to target international students, and excavation on the underground car park began in November 2019.
However, when the COVID-19 pandemic interrupted construction for six months, Morris Property Group announced its sales targets had not been met, and it was considering whether a retail space or government office would be more appropriate for the space.
By 2021, planning permission had been granted for Morris Property Group to build a commercial office complex above the car park, the structural works for which had by that time been completed.
