Developers and speculators are starting to move on some of the city's tired commercial properties which have been reappraised following the opening of EastLink in 2008.

Queensland Investment Corporation has started construction on the $575 million expansion of the Eastland shopping centre; the Napthine government is putting $66 million into a revamped railway station.

The local Maroondah City Council is spending $52.2 million on a new swimming complex called Aquanation. And last year, US supermarket giant Costco opened a new 14,500 square metre store.

The first major strata office development in Ringwood since 2005 is almost sold out after just a few weeks of marketing. Omnico's four-level 50 New project (at 50 New Street) is close to the EastLink off-ramp and at the back of a large 1.6-hectare site bought by fast food chain McDonald's for $15 million.

McDonald's developed a new store at the corner of New Street and Maroondah Highway and has sold most of the remaining 1.3 hectares. It is in the heart of a section Maroondah City Council has earmarked for significant projects rising as high as six storeys.

Knight Frank agent Chao Zhang, who is marketing the project with Tim Grant and Thompson May, said 80 per cent of the 50 New buyers were local owner-occupiers, many of whom bought their offices through self-managed superannuaton funds.

Mr Zhang said sale prices ranged from between $4650 and $5200 a square metre. The project has a total 3148 square metres of space broken into strata offices ranging in size from 42 square metres to 184 square metres.

"Ringwood has 31,000 square metres of office space with a vacancy rate of 1.4 per cent which is substantially below the broader suburban office rate of 5.4 per cent.

CBRE agent Scott Orchard, who has sold two of the remaining three parcels of land owned by McDonald's on Maroondah Highway, said Ringwood's rising median house and unit prices are drawing interest.

"We are now seeing developers who are interested in Ringwood and more speculators who are having a look around," Mr Orchard said.

One 3985 square metre lot at 2-6 Sherbrook Avenue was bought by a local residential developer – with off-shore backing – for $4.1 million. A smaller site on New Street has sold to another developer but is more likely to become a commercial site, he said.

Across the road, the former Iceland ice-skating rink and Chippy's timber yard is also on the market, with a potential high-rise scheme boasting a hotel and apartments.

"Ringwood has been one of those markets where people have been sceptical and it's only in the past 18 months that it's started to move. Land values haven't escalated greatly but we're getting $1000 a square metre where it would have been $800 a square metre two years ago," he said.