This article is from the Australian Property Journal archive
A JAPANESE restaurant, a trendy café and an ice creamery are part of a retail offering on the Sydney Harbour that is expected to sell for $50 million, billed as the “last retail opportunity” near the Opera House.
The offering, known as Opera Residences Retail, is the retail component of the recently completed Opera Residences development at 71 Macquarie Street, and has been put to the market by developers Macrolink and Landream ahead of its grand opening this month.
Spanning 1,746 sqm on title, the four-level property has 38 metres of waterfront frontage to Sydney Harbour. It has five retail spaces with four confirmed tenants, including Japanese teppanyaki fine dining restaurant and bar Oborozuki, a trendy ground floor café, award- winning international restaurant chain, Ippudo Ramen and upmarket Opera Ice Creamery.
Knight Frank agents Dominic Ong and Linda Zhu, along with Colliers’ agent Joseph Lin and Auschain agent Sean Huang have been appointed to steer the expressions of interest campaign, nearly five years after the developers tried selling a smaller retail offering for over $40 million.
Ong is anticipating domestic and international investor interest due to the rarity of the offering and its prime location.
“This high-end retail space is arguably the best real estate in Australia, with a front-row seat to Sydney Harbour and just a short walk from the Opera House,” he said.
“It is in the most iconic location in Sydney, making it one of Australia’s most visited destinations and a key transport hub in the heart of the city.
The 104 apartments in Opera Residences sold off the plan within two hours of their 2016 launch, with $550 million in sales recorded in a single day and six record-breaking sales, with a Sydney family splashing out $57 million on a penthouse and two sub-penthouses. Recent resales in the development have reportedly seen prices uplifts of between 20% and 30%.
Lin said Opera Retail was the last retail centre along East Circular Quay, and could be viewed as an intergenerational investment.
“This type of asset is one that will be tightly held by any buyer given its capacity to hold and increase its value,” Huang said.
“Apart from its long-term potential, the investment is underpinned by its stable income, with the space having long and secure leases.”
It neighbours retail spaces at 1A Macquarie Street that earlier this year smashed the per sqm rates for retail transactions in Australia twice over. An investor paid $153,358 per sqm for the Guylian Belgian Chocolate Café – $11.5 million in total – in April, which topped the previous record set in February by a 43 sqm bubble tea shop that sold for $132,558 per sqm. Those were eclipsed in recent weeks by a 16 sqm Circular Quay gelato shop that sold at $185,437 per sqm.
The Opera Residences development has been shortlisted for multiple awards, including the multi-residential category in the 2022 NSW AIA Awards, as well as being a finalist in the high density development category in the Urban Taskforce Australia 2022 Development Excellence Awards, the in the 2022 Architizer A+ Awards.
