Receiver appointed after luxury townhouse development stalls

The company building a high-end development at one of Canberra’s most prestigious addresses has gone into receivership after work stopped on the partly built site before Christmas.

One of Canberra’s best-known developers, Keggins, is behind the project at 11 State Circle in Forrest – nine luxury townhouses that were last listed for sale at $3.85 million.

The site on the corner with Hobart Avenue has been locked up since late December, but this week notices were affixed to the gates advising that enquiries should be directed to the receiver Newton Advisory, which describes itself as market leaders in property and construction risk management and distressed situations.

Region sent a long list of questions to Newton Advisory’s Brett Lennane, who is named as the contact point, but he would not comment on the situation.

An insolvency notice has not yet been posted on the ASIC website, so it is not known if Keggins itself is in trouble or just one of its many companies. Keggins Industrial Pty Ltd is listed as the licensed builder for 11 State Circle.

Emails to Keggins director Jin Wang and development manager Tim Pan have gone unanswered.

The office phone number is not answering.

This week, an extensive listing for the development from Blackshaw Manuka was pulled after Region made enquiries about the status of the development.

An earlier inquiry with a trade connected to the project revealed that the developer was in the process of trying to refinance to restart the build, but that appears to have come to nought.

It is not known how many of the homes have been sold off the plan, and where this leaves those who would have paid hefty deposits.

It is also not known how many employees and trades are affected and how much they are owed.

A receiver is usually appointed when a company cannot pay its bills, particularly to its secured creditor.

Keggins acquired the 3768 square metre parcel of land 500 metres from Parliament House in March 2021 for $8,410,000, almost $2 million over the reserve.

The land belonged to the descendants of Sir Cyrus Lenox Hewitt – who was Secretary of the Prime Minister’s Department in the Gorton Government – who bequeathed it to them when he died in February 2020.

According to the Keggins website, the nine three-level homes boast more than 460 square metres of floorspace, three bedrooms, three bathrooms and a triple garage and storage, complemented with extensive landscaped gardens and private courtyard spaces.

Keggins is behind the Sapphire and Penthouse 405 developments at Kingston Foreshore and the W2 residential tower in the Woden Town Centre.

In December 2023, Keggins spent more than $26 million buying four blocks of land from the Suburban Land Agency in the Lawson Stage 2B estate in Belconnen.

According to ASIC, a Keggins company, Keggins Estate Pty Ltd, went into liquidation last October after an application from the Deputy Commissioner of Taxation to wind it up.

Canberra’s property industry has suffered a string of failures in recent times, including two of the ACT’s most prominent firms, PBS Building in 2023 and Project Coordination in 2024, both of which have been wound up.

Others to go bust have been Rork Projects, Cubitt’s Granny Flats and Home Extensions, Voyager Projects and Imagine Building Concepts.

Supply chain disruptions from the pandemic and rising costs have been plaguing the construction sector nationwide.