Shopping centre at booming end of town
A fully-tenanted shopping centre with plenty of parking and profile to three roads is for sale in Palmerston North’s fast growing suburb of Terrace End.
Bucking the occupancy and performance trend for suburban retail precincts around the country, Midway Shopping Centre, Cnr Albert and Main Sts, has a stable mix of eight tenants, with a weighted average lease term of three-plus years.
Located about 2km from the CBD, the centre is being marketed by Mark Sherlock of Bayleys Wellington and Karl Cameron, Bayleys Manawatu with tenders closing at 4pm, April 10.
They say the centre — which stands in the Outer Business Zone — was bought in 2012 by an Auckland-based property company, which is now consolidating its assets. Buildings provide retail accommodation, with a fullheight glazed frontage. The total floor area is 1882sq m, with 23 customer car parks, plus tenant car parking on the
4046sq m site.
“With a common verandah and signage parapet running along the Albert St and Broadway Ave frontages, the centre’s three buildings resemble a single structure. They have been seismically strengthened, with a current NBS rating of between
67-80 per cent,” says Sherlock. He describes the centre’s retail precinct as having a friendly neighbourhood vibe, with a complementary mix of businesses rounding out retail and service offerings to be found in the broader area. The centre has a Pizza Hut, a nail salon, an artisan European-style bakery, laundromat, fruit and vegetable store, a takeaway store, Liquorland, and a wholefoods outlet.
“It has a community feel about it and the businesses all take pride in the location.”
Among tenants, Steve’s Wholefoods has operated from the centre for more than 20 years, first trading as Bin Inn and later rebranding and refocusing its business model, while Pizza Hut and Midway Fast Foods have both traded from the site since 2003.
“Having these stalwarts underpinning the centre has given confidence to other businesses and the centre now returns a net rental of $416,177pa.”
Sherlock points to a general move away from The Square towards Terrace End in recent years. Particularly for destination retail uses and standalone low-level offices — largely driven by seismic work required to bring inner-city buildings up to new compliance thresholds. Terrace End remains a desirable family-orientated suburb which is well-resourced with community amenities and commercial business options and this gives credibility to the property from an investors’ perspective.”
Sherlock says Terrace End recorded 10 per cent annual growth in residential property values in the past 12 months, which is outperforming much of Palmerston North.
Last year CoreLogic and OneRoof named Terrace End one of the 10 fastest moving suburbs in NZ, with properties on average taking just 11 days to sell.