Buyer to build on solid foundation
AN AMP Capital-run fund which has made the Gold Coast’s biggest retail buy of 2017, the $137.54 million purchase of Southport’s The Brickworks centre, is not about to embark on a redevelopment spree.
Christopher Davitt, who is overseeing what is the home of the Ferry Rd Market for new owner, the unlisted Wholesale Australian Property Fund, yesterday said that growth at the property would be “organically based”. He said that growth would centre around The Brickworks’ features of progressive shopping, dining and lifestyle offerings and its strong and growing catchment area.
Mr Davitt said an attraction point with The Brickworks was the number, mix and quality of tenants.
Major traders at the Brickworks include Freedom Furniture, US-owned off-price retail chain TK Maxx, and Chemist Warehouse.
The 15,183sq m single-level retail area includes around 50 other retail, dining and foodrelated outlets.
It nets nearly $7 million a year when fully let and the Wholesale Australian Property Fund bought it, off-market, on a yield of 5.09 per cent.
The deal is a big win for Brisbane-based sellers Calile Malouf Investments and company Ralph Lauren, which is owned by Patrick George and John James and is not associated with the fashion brand of that name.
They bought The Brickworks, which is on 2.72ha site, for $24.26 million in 2004 and two years later initiated an $8 million makeover that included delivering the Ferry Rd Market.
At the same time, the partners bought three adjoining properties for nearly $4 million, expanding their holding to 3.5ha with a mixed-use zoning.
JLL valuation director John Muchall yesterday said the Wholesale Australian Property Fund had bought into an area, Southport, with a net annual population growth of 2.4 per cent, well above the national average.
“The fund’s looking at strong rental growth, with most tenants having annual increases of between 4 and 5 per cent,” he said.
The Brickworks was initiated by veteran New Zealand property investor James Kirkpatrick in the mid- 1980s.
An annex that includes a series of strata-title showrooms was added on the western side of the adjoining Warehouse Rd in the 1990s.