Central Napier retail gem offers options for new owner
The land and buildings housing Batika Imports at 242-246 Emerson St, Napier, are being marketed for sale by Bayleys Real Estate by way of deadline private treaty closing Wednesday, March 11, unless sold earlier.
Agent Sam MacDonald said the property presented several options for buyers, including their own retail business or splitting the building into further tenancies
The building is in the central business district, the site of redevelopments such as the iconic Provincial Building at 262 Emerson St, the Vero House office tower at 70 Tennyson St, and Parkers Chambers at 24A Hastings St.
The Emerson St premises is a designated heritage building on a paved and cobbled street with planter boxes and palm trees. The property is a single storey building constructed in
1932, according to a previous valuation report.
The building consists of two tenancies. One of them is soon to be vacant, but MacDonald said the vendor, Senteiro Properties, was offering
12-month leaseback income of $48,000, or a new purchaser can take vacant possession sooner if preferred.
“The other space returns $45,000 a year and is occupied by Batika Imports, an established clothing and accessories retailer that has a further retail site in Taupo.
“Th tenancy spaces consist of about 189sq m and 216sq m respectively, with a combined street frontage of 9.8m,” MacDonald said.
“The Emmerson St property is surrounded by strip retail premises and strong national retail chains, clothing retailers, cafes, hairdressers, book stores, shoe stores and the like.
“Since the later part of 2015 there has been an increase in commercial property activity in Hawkes Bay again including big box retailing.”
MacDonald said Napier’s economy was enjoying a “hospitality explosion” as new bars and restaurants spring up. “Recently completed hospitality projects — including Market St Bar and Bistro, and Cafe Anatolia — are attracting patrons and reducing building vacancy rates,” he said.
The 242-246 Emerson St site is zoned Commercial Art Deco Quarter, and the building occupies most of the site.
It fits into the medium priced bracket for Hawke’s Bay and provides suitable investment security for first mortgage commercial lending conditions, according to the valuation report.
With a population more than 60,000, Napier is a popular tourist city, partly because of its 1930s art deco architecture built after the inner city was largely destroyed in the 1931 earthquake.
The wider Napier/Hastings population is more than 125,000 — bigger than Tauranga or Dunedin. The region is amid an economic boom underpinned by high growth in the pip fruit and tourism industries, MacDonald said.
A highlight is the Art Deco week in mid-February. It is one of the biggest art festivals in the world. More than 25 per cent of visitors of the 2019 events were from other countries.
The expanding economy is evident at Napier Port which has been enlarged with a range of developments such as a recreational boat marina, and recently the shares in the port company were released in a successful float that also attracted many employees to take an allocation.