Big new player in Queenstown
Opened in 2021, Upper Village Queenstown is an architecturally designed retail and entertainment hub in the heart of the worldrenowned tourism destination.
Positioned 150m from the Skyline Gondola, Upper Village offers a central hub for retail, entertainment and hospitality.
The centre incorporates a King Pin bowling alley and entertainment venue on top of a diverse mix of international food, beverage and entertainment retailers, including Wahlburgers, Anita Gelato and Max Brenner.
JLL’s Jacob Swan and Jonathan Ogg, together with Colliers’ Mark Simpson and Rory O’Donnell, have been appointed to run an international expressions of interest campaign, closing Thursday March 4.
“Upper Village Queenstown is a once in a lifetime opportunity to acquire an irreplaceable retail and entertainment precinct, boasting a premium tenancy profile,” said Swan.
Forecasts predict that domestic visitors will double and international visitors to Queenstown will nearly triple in the next 10 years.
The primary driver for this growth is Queenstown’s dominant tourism industry. It has recently shown a 14 per cent increase in overseas visitor arrivals since 2022, reflecting approximately 310,000 additional
overseas visitors from June 2022 to June 2023.
Simpson says Upper Village Queenstown offers the unique opportunity to acquire a premium grade investment asset within the tightly held Queenstown market, which has recorded only eight transactions over $10 million since 2020.
“Upper Village is the first brandnew, large-scale Queenstown CBD asset of this quality to be listed on the market over the past five years.”
Upper Village is strategically located between the town centre and Skyline Gondola, offering
unparalleled accessibility and exposure to the thousands of tourists travelling along Brecon St daily.
Recently constructed retail assets are benefitting from the extreme constraint on new supply given rising construction costs, ideally positioning Upper Village for acquisition below replacement cost, with the added benefit of genuine income upside.
The retail sector has emerged as an investment safe haven over 2023 and into 2024 as the only asset class that provides a genuine hedge against inflationary pressure and provides a clear path of income
escalation driven by population and tourism growth.
The Queenstown hotels and hospitality industry continues to drive phenomenal growth, according to Ogg.
“Strong trading conditions in the years prior to the pandemic saw increased development activity within the market. In the five years prior to 2021, 10 new hotels opened, adding 1012 rooms to the market. This trend appears to continue with recent openings including the Holiday Inn Remarkables Park and Sudima Queenstown.”