Hurstville hub that captures commuters hits the market
A retail centre that encompasses one of Sydney’s busiest train stations, Hurstville in the city’s south, has hit the market with expectations of around $130 million.
The Hurstville Central Shopping Centre and the adjoining Gateway site is controlled by Sydney-based property platform Cerno, which acquired the property in 2006.
Investment house AsheMorgan is also an investor in the retail real estate.
When Cerno took over the property – it is held as leasehold – it was a dilapidated and underperforming centre.
Since then, backed by AsheMorgan, the centre has been fully refurbished. It is now anchored by a high turnover Coles supermarket, along with four mini-majors, 27 specialty tenants, eight kiosks and seven ATMs.
Combined, the shopping centre and the Gateway site, which has considerable development potential, comprise 15,211 square metres.
Its biggest strength is the fact that commuters must make their way through the shopping centre to get to the station. The centre is also directly linked to two major bus interchanges.
Hurstville Central and the Gateway site are being handled by McVay Real Estate and Stonebridge.
“Hurstville Central vastly outperforms category benchmarks due to its unrivalled passenger/foot traffic and captive position at the station entry,” said Sam McVay of McVay Real Estate.
“Sydney’s phenomenal economic and population growth is making retail investments in the metropolitan area increasingly sought after, particularly those located on or around key infrastructure within a short radius of the CBD,” he said.
The property has an average lease expiry of 7.6 years by area and more than 98 per cent occupancy.
“Some of the world’s largest retailers have their best performing tenancies in retail oriented concourses and these groups understand the benefit of placing stores into highly trafficked transit hubs,” said Phil Gartland of Stonebridge.
Examples of that were at King’s Cross and St Pancras stations in London where retailers such as John Lewis and Nike have smaller “click and commute” stores, he said.
The Hurstville mall is the latest in a run of high-profile retail assets to hit the market.
In December, retirement village operator Aveo sold its Gasworks Plaza retail and office complex at Newstead in Brisbane to AMP Capital in a $248.4 million deal.
Last month in the centre of Sydney, on the Pitt Street mall, one of the city’s best-known retail sites, the historic headquarters of Washington H Soul Pattinson, was sold to property investor Victor Comino for about $100 million.
