The Dexus-Boral joint venture at Ravenhall represents a rare opportunity to unlock one of Australia's largest future industrial precincts. In this interview, Chris Mackenzie, Executive General Manager, Industrial at Dexus, discusses the vision for the site, the strength of the partnership, and how Dexus plans to create long-term value through development, investment management and operations.

Q: Can you walk us through the Dexus-Boral joint venture (JV) - what's the vision for the site, and what is it about this site that makes it suited to becoming Australia's largest industrial precinct?

CM: In short: 630 hectares. 2.5 million sqm. $14.9 billion to the Victorian economy. There's nothing else like it.

It can’t be overstated that this opportunity to partner with Boral at Ravenhall is once in a generation. You’re looking at a site of scale in Melbourne’s western corridor, which has become the most important logistics geography in Australia. It sits roughly 20 kilometres from the CBD, with direct access to the Western Ring Road, the Port of Melbourne, Melbourne Airport and the future Outer Metropolitan Ring Road. A site of this scale, in this location, may never come to market again.

But what makes it particularly compelling is the completeness of the opportunity – this isn’t an incremental land play; it’s the foundation for a fully integrated industrial precinct that, at full build-out, could deliver around 2.5 million sqm of prime logistics space. For a project of this size, that scale also translates into economic contribution.  

We expect the precinct to generate around 3,000 jobs at peak construction and support more than 31,000 ongoing direct, indirect and induced jobs during operations, while contributing billions of dollars to the economy during construction and once operational.

The site’s scale also allows us to think about planning, access, infrastructure and a consistent tenant amenity standard at a precinct level, which you can’t achieve with individual sites. It becomes its own ecosystem.

The fact the site is currently an active quarry is also part of the story, as it means we’re working with a clean slate, with full control over master planning, staging and activation from day one.

Q: How did the partnership with Boral come about, and what does each party bring to the table that the other couldn't achieve alone?

CM: Boral ran a competitive process, so we’re proud that Dexus was chosen as their trusted partner.

Boral has an extraordinary land asset with long-term potential beyond its current use and experience in rehabilitating quarry land for urban re-use. The opportunity was to identify a partner with the capability to help realise this potential – and that requires very specific capabilities: the ability to navigate complex rezoning, the development management depth to sequence a multi-decade program, the capital markets relationships to attract the right institutional partners and the Industrial operating platform to manage and lease the site over time.

That’s the combination Dexus brings to the table. We’re not just here to develop the site and hand it over – we’re the investment manager, development manager and property manager for the full lifecycle of the precinct. This model was a genuine differentiator in the process. Boral, in turn, brings something no one else could offer: the land itself, plus the deep knowledge of the site’s subsurface conditions, rehabilitation needs and quarrying timeline. That kind of site intelligence is invaluable when you’re planning activation around an operating quarry.

Boral's position as one of Australia's largest construction materials businesses means their interest in the precinct extends well beyond land - the scale of civil and construction activity across a multi-decade build program creates a direct supply chain opportunity that is a genuine market advantage that deepens their alignment with the precinct's long-term success.

Q: Further to your point, what does taking on full responsibility for the precinct’s lifecycle mean for how the project is delivered, and for the returns it can generate?

CM: This is one of the aspects I’m most proud of. Dexus’s vertically integrated platform spans the full lifecycle – investment, development, leasing and operational lifecycle of the precinct. That’s not typical in the market and it matters enormously. When you have a single manager that is accountable across all of these functions, for a project of this scale, alignment isn't just a nice to have, it's what makes a 20-year program executable.

We are not looking at the site as a short-term development exercise. We are thinking about how it performs as a precinct over decades, and how each stage contributes to the broader investment outcome. Decisions made around planning, infrastructure, staging and tenant mix compounds into the long-term quality of the asset. Activation on this scale - complex, multi-year and spanning rezoning, staging and capital deployment - can only be led by the entity with full site intelligence and operational accountability. Boral brings the land; Dexus brings the capability needed to unlock it.

From a Dexus perspective, the structure is consistent with our strategy to grow capital-efficient earnings through our platform across investment management, development and property management. Our ongoing accountability for asset performance fundamentally shapes the planning and infrastructure decisions we make.

Q: At 630 hectares and 2.5 million sqm of potential lettable area, this is an enormous undertaking - how do you approach phasing development and deploying capital at a precinct of this scale?

CM: Scale like this demands discipline - not ambition for its own sake. We’re not trying to develop the 2.5 million sqm simultaneously. Instead, we’re staging the activation carefully and in sequence, aligned with the progressive availability of land as quarrying activity transitions over time.

Early activation is expected to focus on areas that can connect efficiently with existing infrastructure and adjacent success in Dexus managed landholdings - Horizon 3023 and 220 Riding Boundary Road. This adjacency gives us servicing certainty, infrastructure efficiency and immediate market presence from day one.  From there it’s a staged, long-term program, which we expect will unfold over a multi-decade horizon – shaped by demand rather than a fixed calendar. That staged approach supports disciplined capital deployment, with investment matched to demand and delivery readiness.

Q: Core to Dexus's strategy is to build a diversified and capital-efficient platform – how does the structure of this joint venture reflect that approach?

CM: Capital efficiency is central to how we have structured this. This is a large-scale, long-term opportunity, and the JV allows Dexus to contribute our development, investment management and operational capability while maintaining discipline around capital deployment.

Over time, the structure also provides flexibility to work with aligned capital partners where appropriate. That is consistent with the way we think about the platform: using Dexus’s balance sheet, capability and relationships to access high-quality real asset opportunities at scale. As a private sector partner, Dexus can mobilise capital, while working in close alignment with government on rezoning and infrastructure delivery.

Q: We’ve demonstrated what's possible in terms of delivering and managing large format industrial developments through Horizon 3023 - what are the key learnings from that estate that you're bringing to this site?

CM: Horizon 3023 has been fully leased to global covenant customers. The relationships we've built with government and with tenants in Melbourne's west are a direct asset for this site. We're not starting from scratch.

It has been one of our most important capability-building exercises and it sits directly adjacent to this Ravenhall site. We understand the western corridor deeply: the infrastructure constraints, government relationships, the tenant profile and the leasing dynamics.

The key lessons we’re carrying forward are around planning and infrastructure. Transport infrastructure is the single biggest variable in activating a large-format industrial site. It can make or break your timeline. Horizon has reinforced the importance of engaging with authorities early, modelling the impacts thoroughly and building flexibility into sequencing in case an approval takes longer than anticipated.

We’ve also learned that the best industrial precincts aren’t just a collection of sheds. They have a coherent identity, quality public realm and an amenity offer that attract customers and supports their growth and retention. We're also looking at how the best logistics precincts in the world have been delivered and operated at scale, and using that to inform our approach.

Q: With supply contracting and pre-leasing activity rising, how does that shape the investment thesis here - and the type of interest you'd expect in this precinct? And on the customer mix, does the site suit large-format distribution and fulfilment, or is there room for a broader range of uses?

CM: Current conditions are supportive, with Melbourne’s market vacancy around 4-5% reflecting the underlying demand from logistics, ecommerce, advanced manufacturing and supply chain consolidation. But the investment thesis is not built on a single point in the cycle. This is a 20-year program. Conditions will move, supply will respond accordingly and we’ll go through multiple cycles before we’re complete. So, the strategic rationale has to be grounded in long-term fundamentals: location, scale, connectivity, tenant demand and the scarcity of well-located industrial land in Melbourne’s west. Bringing 2.5 million sqm forward directly addresses the structural undersupply in Melbourne's west. Without a proponent-led approach of this kind, this land simply stays locked up.

The current leasing environment gives us confidence around the early stages, particularly where occupiers are seeking certainty of access to large-format, well-connected logistics space. Our track record in leasing and our national partnerships with global covenant customers underpin that confidence. With scale and presence across all major cities – Victoria being the largest industrial market in the country – we are well-placed to support our customers' needs and growth plans as the precinct develops. But the real strength of the site is its flexibility. It gives us the ability to respond to demand over time, rather than forcing supply into the market ahead of need.

The question is less whether this site will lease, and more how quickly we can activate it.