9 February 2026
Luxury apartment developer Fortis is looking to ramp up its Adelaide pipeline of projects following its debut acquisition last year, with two more developments in the works and a potential move into the office sector.
Fortis, the property development arm of Sydney investment and private credit firm Pallas Group, has joined forces with local developer Otello for its first project in Adelaide – a $90m apartment development on Hutt St, where construction is expected to begin in the middle of the year.
The joint venture partners are also working together on a 150-home apartment and townhouse project at the former West End brewery site, and Fortis head of acquisitions for Victoria and South Australia Arthur Dendrinos confirmed the company was also working on plans for a $150m luxury project in North Adelaide.
Mr Dendrinos said the company had been circling Adelaide for the right opportunity for a couple of years, and it was now looking to capitalise on a maturing of the city’s burgeoning apartment market.
“We think Adelaide demonstrates strong and consistent demand, especially when you compare it to states like Victoria,” he said.
“That’s largely supported by population growth, and there’s a bit of investment going on – the premier there is pro development, which assists us as well.
“There seems to be that broader shift into people wanting to live in apartments as downsizers, which hasn’t really existed in Adelaide until this point.
“With underlying land values where they are in Adelaide for development sites, it makes sense, especially when you overlay with what apartments are selling for at the moment.
“It is an early adoption. We feel a little bit like we are the first cab off the rank but at the same time we think there’s a lot of value there as well.”
Mr Dendrinos said there were plans to recruit a team on the ground in Adelaide following the opening of an office for sister company, Pallas Group’s lending arm Pallas Capital, late last year.
He said Fortis would consider a broad range of residential projects in Adelaide, ranging from luxury to “middle market”, while a foray into the city’s office market was also a possibility following an improvement in market conditions.
“Traditionally Fortis is known as a luxury brand, especially in the inner east of Sydney, and Brisbane very much follows that mantra of a luxury brand, while in Melbourne we have dipped our toes into more middle market stock,” he said.
“We see Adelaide as a spectrum of all of that but it would have to be within the inner ring and the Adelaide CBD.
“We would look at commercial. At the moment the fundamentals aren’t really there to make it something that is viable, but like everything, that changes pretty quickly.
“As the economy starts to recover from the high interest rate periods we’ve had over the past two to four years, we’ll start seeing compression in cap rates and likely a push on commercial assets and that could be an opportunity for us in Adelaide for sure.”
