Joint venture plans to escape giant warehouse
The freight logistics joint venture between a Fonterra business and Port of Tauranga wants to escape one of Auckland’s largest warehouses, owned by Goodman Group.
Paddy Callesen, director of industrial sales and leasing in Auckland for real estate agents Savills, said the warehouse at 113 Savill Dr in O¯ tāhuhu was up for sublease.
It is a 20,150sq m high-stud warehouse with an enclosed canopy area of 5470 sq m, on a 4.2ha site and leased to Coda Group, owned by Fonterra’s Kotahi Logistics LP and Port of Tauranga. The building is of dairy-grade quality.
A change in how that joint venture moves milk products sparked Coda’s call for a subtenant and its attempt to leave the premises.
Fonterra’s Waikato dairy products are no longer exported via but go via the Port of Tauranga, so Coda’s no longer requires Auckland storage space, the Herald understands.
The hub was hailed as a huge advancement back in 2016 when an expansion was announced. The building has a rail connection, ideal for large freight movement.
James Spence, Goodman’s chief executive, said it was one of a group of buildings which make up the trust’s Savill Link investment, developed from around 2006 and valued at $600 million-$700m.
Savill Link is a 160,000sq m or 16ha property, yielding annual rent of $35m to $40m, Goodman says.
The warehouse at 113 Savill Dr was developed from 2008 but changes were made to it up until 2017, Spence said. It has been used for milk product storage, including milk powder and is not currently empty.
“Not many buildings have a railway line like this. They’re pretty hard to come by,” he said.
Coda has leased the property till 2032 with a right of renewal until 2050 so Goodman was comfortable with those arrangements, he said.
Savill’s Tom Cooper said subtenants had been sought since March 1.
Spence said the leasing market for industrial buildings remained strong with extremely low vacancies.
In 2016, the Bay of Plenty Times reported Coda had completed the rail link into its Auckland freight hub.
Coda’s chief executive at the time, Scott Brownlee, said then the intermodal freight hub would provide a consolidation point for export, import and domestic cargo flows into one location.
The Savill Dr property’s rail line connected to the Metroport rail link in Onehunga.
“Achieving rail connectivity at Savill Dr is a key milestone in the development of a more efficient transport network for the North Island,” Brownlee said in June 2016.
Access to rail was possible with the development of a new 10,000sq m intermodal yard.
In December 2016, Coda was reported as celebrating its intermodal freight hub expansion, providing that one consolidation point.
More than 300, 20-foot equivalent container loads of goods would flow through the hub each day, the Herald reported then.
Questions have been put to Fonterra, Coda and the Port of Tauranga about leaving the big warehouse but no response was received.