This article is from the Australian Property Journal archive
KENNARDS Self Storage has splashed $23.05 million on a former disaster recovery centre in the Chatswood industrial precinct.
Located at 26 Smith Street, around 10km out from the Sydney CBD, Chatswood Disaster Recovery Centre comprises 5,644sqm of freehold land, a 5,629.2sqm five-storey hybrid building with high ceilings, a loading deck and 600 workstations in the office space.
The building was constructed in the early 197 90s before being repurposed in 2017 as a state-of-the-art Disaster Recovery Centre featuring a high-spec fit-out, substantial power infrastructure, and high-value plant and equipment.
Gordon McFadyen, Harry Sullivan and Dylan McEvoy from JLL managed the sale via an international expressions of interest campaign, which spanned four weeks and attracted strong interest from owner occupiers, developers, local and offshore investors alike.
“The building has high quality existing improvements similar to an office building yet lends itself toward adaptive reuse. This was further supported by planning controls that could allow Kennards to add further floor area on the site (STCA),” said McFadyen.
McFadyen noted the buoyancy of the self-storage sector for demand in the inner industrial markets, in response to growing residential density leading to greater demand for space.
The site also has the capacity to be developed and expanded due to the available floor area and could be expanded on-site to suit self-storage needs.
“It is rare to get over 5500 sqm of freehold land in this area as land is usually fragmented by strata-titled properties or taken by owner-occupiers making it very difficult to develop new projects,” said Sullivan, NSW director of sales & investments at JLL.
“The purchase of the building by Kennards is a good example of adaptive reuse of an obsolete building with tremendous inherent value.”
The site is zoned E4 General Industrial and has a special area floor space ration of 2:1, which could create a maximum potential gross floor area (GFA) of 11,288 sqm, subject to relevant council approvals.
The surrounding industrial precinct is occupied by large institutions including Warehouse, Woolworths, Tesla, and Kennards Self Storage.
While the property also boasts connectivity to major arterial roads, including the M2 Motorway, M1 Motorway, Pacific Highway, and Boundary Street.
The purchase comes less than a week after Kennards purchased the 54,140sqm Roxburgh Park complex for $35 million from HMC Capital in an off-market transaction.
