Maven - variable substitution in repositories url not working

I have the following snippets in my parent pom:

<properties>
   <artifactory>http://mydomain/artifactory</artifactory>
</properties>
...
<repositories>
    <repository>
        <id>central</id>
        <url>${artifactory}/libs-release</url>
        <snapshots>
            <enabled>false</enabled>
        </snapshots>
    </repository>
</repositories>

The issue is that the value of ${artifactory} is not being substituted in maven build causing error: "Could not transfer artifact...No connector available to access repository central (${artifactory}/libs-release) of type default using the available factories WagonRepositoryConnectorFactory"

Is this a known issue when using variables in URL? Can't find any related stuff with this.