Westfield owner Scentre Group steps up plans to transform landholdings into new dwellings

The boss of Australia’s biggest retail landlord Scentre Group says the company is engaging with governments and potential capital partners to transform its vast land holdings into thousands of new dwellings.

Scentre, which owns and operates 42 Westfield shopping centres across Australian and New Zealand, recently received rezoning approval at its Hornsby site in Sydney and Belconnen in Canberra.

This could allow large-scale residential development of more than 2100 and 2000 dwellings, respectively, at those locations.

Meanwhile, Westfield Warringah in Sydney was declared a State-significant development in March with the potential to create about 1500 dwellings.

Delivering Scentre’s results for the six months to June 30 on Tuesday, chief executive Elliott Rusanow described the group’s destinations and 670 hectares of strategic landholdings as “key community infrastructure with the potential to deliver additional housing at scale”.

“We continue to progress our significant and long-term growth opportunities by utilising our prime urban land to create the town centres of the future,” he said.

“Our landholdings could potentially supply a significant number of new dwellings in town centres where people already want to live and work.

“We are engaging with governments and potential capital partners on how we can realise these housing opportunities across our portfolio.”

Scentre reported funds from operations of $587 million in the first half of the year, up 3.2 per cent on the same time the prior year.

The company upgraded distribution guidance for the second half of fiscal 2025 to 8.905¢ a share, representing 3.5 per cent growth on 2024. For the first half, it paid distributions of $459m, or 8.815¢ a share.

Scentre’s financial year ends on December 31.

The upgrade came on the back of an increase in the number of shoppers visiting Westfield centres. Mr Rusanow said there had been 340 million customer visitations so far for the current fiscal year — 10 million more than the same period last year — and portfolio occupancy stood at 99.7 per cent, representing the highest level since 2017.

The bump in customers helped retailers’ sales at Westfield malls jump 2.9 per cent to $13.8 billion.

Net profit for the six month period rocketed 93.7 per cent to $782.2m, which included an unrealised property valuation increase of $177m. As of June 30, the group’s portfolio was valued at $34.7b.

Shares in Scentre Group were up 1.6 per cent to $4.06 in afternoon trade on Tuesday.