Get your wallets out, key Coast shopping centre up for sale

A SHARE in one of the Gold Coast’s biggest shopping centres is on the market, with the state government’s fund manager selling out of its stake in Westfield Helensvale.

Queensland Investment Commission (QIC) is preparing to market its 50 per cent stake in the centre, which was built in 2005 and hosts 6.3 million customers a year.

QIC’s share is likely to sell for a nine-figure sum, with recent 50 per cent stakes in regional shopping centres including Western Australia’s Garden City centre, which was acquired by Scentre Group in 2019 for $575m, and YFG’s two-stage purchase of Mt Ommaney shopping centre in Brisbane for $380m.

Scentre Group owns the other half of Westfield Helensvale, along with the neighbouring site of the former NightQuarter markets, which was tipped to be the home of a new McDonald’s, 7-11 and KFC.

CBRE has been appointed to steer the high-profile sale campaign on behalf of the QIC Property Fund.

The agency’s head of retail capital markets Simon Rooney said investors were actively seeking top-end shopping centre opportunities.

“While early days, we are seeing a clear value and performance reset in the regional shopping centre sector in 2021, with the best assets recording strong monthly turnover and traffic growth in addition to income stabilisation,” he said.

CBRE said the centre was located on an under-utilised, 17.27ha site and had about 44,800sq m of lettable space.

Major national retailers Woolworths, Coles, Aldi, Kmart and Target account for 88 per cent of the total GLA and contribute to the centre’s high visitation rate of more than 6.3 million customers a year.

Mr Rooney said the 50 per cent stake represented a rare opportunity to secure a highquality regional shopping centre interest.

“We expect this very strategic 50 per cent stake in Westfield Helensvale to be competitively contested, as regional assets of this nature are traditionally tightly held and rarely traded,” he said.

“The centre’s high productivity, robust performance and solid rebound post Queensland’s Covid lockdowns, will help drive competitive investor interest, as will the asset’s strategic growth corridor location, high customer spend and surrounding significant transport infrastructure.”