Land availability was a "missing piece" that Bendigo needed to attract more businesses, City of Greater Bendigo CEO Andrew Cooney said.

His comments came as work started on a new industrial park in Bendigo that demonstrated how "confidence" was high in the city's business market.

The $55m Prime Business Park at Rohs Road, East Bendigo will include 17 versatile office spaces and 24 warehouses on 5.51 acres of industrial land.

Up to 40 per cent of the spaces in the complex, being developed by the Prime Urban Group, have already been taken.

Lack of land needs addressing

Mr Cooney said businesses wanted to move to Bendigo, but finding industrial land and modern facilities was a challenge.

"[For Prime Urban] to have nearly 40 per cent of the sites sold before they've started construction is a real sign in the confidence of our Bendigo market," he said.

"This is smaller warehouse style, we still need to see larger sites to cater for that next stage of growth or for those different sorts of businesses that we want to bring to town."

Mr Cooney said work was progressing at the Bendigo Regional Employment Precinct (BREP) at Marong, a 295-hectare site on which the state government spent $6 million for planning.

"[The BREP will] provide solutions to a lot of the challenges that we've got with the shortage of large-scale industrial land ... we're all on track with the current plans that we've got," he said.

Bendigo's 'missing piece'

The availability of land was the "missing piece" Bendigo needed to attract more businesses, Mr Cooney said.

"We talk about the features that we've got to offer: we've got a really vibrant city, we've got connections to beautiful rural outlooks, we've got direct flights in and out of Sydney every day and 20,000 people each year taking that opportunity," he said.

"If you're a new business, you think about what do you need? You need proximity to major centers, you need a talent pool, you need a list of people and you need to know that the place is growing.

"We've got a really captivating story to talk to businesses about and we're doing that regularly, that missing piece is now the land and the product, and projects like this are just ticking that off for us."

Airport opportunities

Work was also progressing at the Bendigo Airport business park, part of its near-$10 million upgrade.

The airport, close to the new business park development, could become a vibrant area for businesses to grow, Mr Cooney said.

The city and the federal government want to attract industries such as service, flight training, freight and warehousing, and car hire to the site.

Just what Bendigo needs: commercial sales agent

Development director at Prime Urban Group Nicholas Tissot said: "To be turning the first sod on-site just a few short months after receiving planning approval is an incredibly exciting milestone for the project," development director at Prime Urban Group Nicholas Tissot said.

"Through the delivery of stage one, we are confident this will support thriving local businesses for years to come."

McKean McGregor commercial sales manager Jeremy Brown said the new East Bendigo business park was "very exciting", as there was a need for offices and warehouses in Bendigo.

The company sold the land to Prime Urban Group 18 months ago and helped work on the design and plans.

"Post-Covid in particular, there's been a real lack of development in and around Bendigo in general and we are talking more and more with businesses that want good modern amenities," he said.

"And so this will provide exactly that."

'Ticks the boxes' for businesses

Mr Brown said while the offices were out of the city centre, many businesses were realising they could operate "quite well" in East Bendigo.

"There's ample parking for staff, there's a cafe ... and there's flexible floor plates for different types of businesses to use," he said.

"So we think it sort of ticks all of the boxes for what modern businesses need."