Commercial property Owner of $63m tower under wraps
AN AS-YET unnamed overseas buyer has bought Grant Thornton House at 215 Lambton Quay for $63 million.
The settlement of the deal has been announced by Willis Bond & Co.
The company bought the mirror-glassed 15-storey ANZ head office tower block from AXA four years ago for $25m and has since spent tens of millions upgrading and modifying the building.
Willis Bond managing director Mark McGuinness said it had been a profitable project.
The refurbishment made maximum use of the central CBD landmark building and created a new destination on Wellington’s Golden Mile with 1900 square metres of retail space and 9900sqm of office premises.
‘‘The building has been vastly improved by the refurbishment and reconfiguration that has opened up the building’s street frontages to Lambton Quay, and Featherston, Hunter and Grey streets,’’ McGuinness said.
Retail tenants include ANZ, Nespresso, The Body Shop; Walker & Hall; and fashion designer Robyn Mathieson.
McGuinness said the office tower was now fully tenanted.
New tenants include Grant Thornton, which also secured naming rights for the building, the Environmental Protection Authority, Optimation and Farmers’ Mutual Group. The sale was settled on June 20. Colliers International agent Bill Leckie said he was not able to dis- close the identify of the buyer as it was still confidential. The transaction would probably not show up on property records for another couple of weeks.
However, the deal showed there was very strong international interest for premium-grade, wellleased, seismically-sound Wellington properties.
The sale price reflected a passing yield of 7.5 per cent.