This article is from the Australian Property Journal archive
NIC De Luca’s De Luca Corporation has sold its newly developed Gold Coast neighbourhood shopping centre, Robina Central, for $34 million.
A private family from Sydney acquired the Aldi-anchored centre on a 5.0% yield.
The centre is also home to fast food giant, Guzman Y Gomez, ASX-listed Ampol, global café Starbucks and MedCentres. It has a long 13-year weighted average lease expiry and returns a total net annual income of $1.7 million.
It comprises four standalone buildings with on-site parking for 127 cars and is accessed via both Robina Parkway and Laver Drive, and is on a corner landholding of 13,100 sqm.
The deal was brokered through Burgess Rawson’s Yosh Mendis, Zomart He, Beau Coulter and Andrew Havig via an expressions of interest campaign that attracted over 280 enquiries from investors across Australia and overseas.
Mendis said the yield achieved for a property of this calibre was one of the tightest in Queensland, affirming the region’s position as an attractive investment destination due to its strong growth.
“The property provided an exceptional tenancy profile secured by global, ASX-listed and national tenants anchored by a major supermarket, national convenience retailer, global fast food operators and proven medical centre operator,” he said.
“The property also exhibited high underlying land value with future development potential offering a generational investment opportunity which was extremely rare to replicate.”
Mendis said increasing land values and construction costs for significant investment assets are making it increasingly difficult for investors to secure premium investment opportunities as constraints on supply for new assets continued.
“Investors will also find it increasingly difficult to acquire properties of this quality at these price points as rentals continue to increase across the investment market given these continuing growing factors around land values and construction costs,” he said.
According to He, 46% of offers received were from Asian capital both on and offshore.
The vendor was local developer, De Luca Corporation, who also worked as the builder alongside Glen Wright’s Wright Private Capital.
Managing director Nic De Luca expressed satisfaction with the outcome and “reiterated the rarity of developing a premium investment opportunity such as Robina Central”.
Activity in the neighbourhood shopping centre market
Australia’s neighbourhood shopping centre is beginning to see some activity after a much-publicised gap between buyer and seller expectations, together with uncertainty in the rising interest rate market, froze deal-making across the commercial real estate market.
Listed shopping centre owner, Region Group has just tipped three Woolworths-anchored, convenience and essential service-based retail assets to the market, including the first time in more than two years investors can secure a sub-$30 million Woolworth’s anchored neighbourhood centre in either Melbourne or Sydney.
Also put to the market have been Coles-anchored Greenacre Village, becoming the first metropolitan Sydney supermarket to be formally offered to the market in 2023, as well as the first freestanding supermarket in Launceston to hit the market in more than seven years, , and the Trinity Village centre in Perth’s Alkimos.
Recent neighbourhood centres to change hands include Woolworths Bomaderry for $40 million, on a 5.43% yield, which was developed and recently completed by the supermarket giant.
