Original owners buy back developed site
A FAMILY that sold a vacant Nerang site for $13.136 million in 2010 and bought it back for little more than that in January, with the bonus of a giant $20 million warehouse, is chasing tenants.
The Look family, longterm Nerang and Highland Park landholders, sold the 33 Hinkler Drive site to the Woolworths-Lowes partnership when it was unrolling a chain of Masters stores around Australia.
When the partnership aborted its Masters venture in 2016, a group called Home Consortium, whose owners include the families behind Spotlight and Chemist Warehouse, paid $725 million for 40 freehold and 21 leasehold Masters warehouses.
The buy include the Nerang warehouse, one at Bundall and the lease on one at Upper Coomera.
In January last year Home Consortium unveiled plans to turn the warehouses into new-look malls but several months later put the Nerang property on the market.
The Look family’s Look Enterprises bought it for $13.75 million.
Home Consortium is pressing on with plans for the Bundall and Upper Coomera warehouses. Property sources say the Nerang warehouse, which is on a 3.412ha site, had a construction cost of around $20 million.
Marlon Crawford, of Colliers International, yesterday said that return owner Look Enterprises had embarked on a leasing exercise and already had received strong inquiries.
“One thought early on was to make it a recreation building, with multiple gyms, and another was to turn it into a home for different hardware brands,” he said.
“The owner’s view is that the fewer tenants the better,” said Mr Crawford, who is handling the leasing campaign with Colliers colleague Daniel Coburn.
“We’re expecting an offer for 3000 sqm and we’ve had early interest from a gym.”
The warehouse has a floor area of 13,000 sqm and parking for 360 vehicles. It is in the same area as a Bunnings hardware warehouse.