Mintus pays $30.5m for Ipswich mall
Sydney-based developer Mintus has paid $30.45 million to buy the Woolworths-anchored St Ives Shopping Centre, plus six adjacent properties in Goodna, Ipswich in south-east Queensland.
Built in the 1970s and renovated many times, the 38,200-square-metre neighbourhood mall on a 6.25-hectare site sold on a fully leased yield of 9.5 per cent.
It was put up for sale by Kin Ming Eddy Tse and Shui On Tse, from Brisbane and Hong Kong. They paid $11.2 million for the asset in 1994.
The sale of the Ipswich mall is further evidence of the appetite among private investors for neighbourhood or convenience centres, anchored by a major supermarket, which are considered better positioned to counter the growth of online retailing.
The Woolworths supermarket, whose lease at St Ives runs until 2023, sits alongside 49 specialty tenants, including Domino’s, Red Rooster and Subway with parking for 500 cars.
It’s the second Queensland mall acquisition by Mintus in less than a year after it paid $40 million in March 2017 to buy the Woolworths-anchored Market Square Deception Bay north of Brisbane.
The company was founded in 2014 by Melham Hazzouri and has been rapidly acquiring a portfolio of malls and residential development projects.
Mr Hazzouri said the St Ives Shopping Centre and its land holding was the perfect fit for the Mintus portfolio.
“The centre allows for plenty of value add and redevelopment for the future. We look forward to significantly adding value in the short term, working with the retailers and the community to bring St Ives back to its full potential,” Mr Hazzouri said.
The sale of St Ives Shopping Centre was transacted by Peter Tyson and Jon Tyson of Savills, in conjunction with Shane Sax of Pace Property.
“The centre attracted strong interest from the market. The sale was well contested resulting in multiple bids, primarily from private investors,” Jon Tyson said.
In 2016, Mintus purchased the Village Central Wyong, a neighbourhood shopping centre on the NSW Central Coast from MAB Corp for just under $18 million while in late 2015, Mintus partnered with Revelop to buy the last remaining parcel of land at Nelsons Ridge in Sydney’s west from Boral for almost $60 million.
