Bella Vista metro station has almost 5000sqm of retail space for lease
Nearly 5000 square metres of retail space at the future Bella Vista Metro station has hit the leasing market, as part of the second batch of shops available along the Sydney Metro Northwest line.
Thirteen spaces have been listed in this round of lease listings across five stations, following the take-up of all 11 shops in the first phase, which ended in June.
A 3000-square-metre vacant site near the future Bella Vista station plaza, on the corner of Bella Vista’s Celebration and Lexington drives, is the biggest lease listing in the campaign. With ground lease periods running from seven and 10 years, the site could be developed into a mix of restaurants, cafes and retail.
A 1500-square-metre undeveloped site outside the station entry is also up for lease for about five years and is suited for food and beverage, general retail and pop-up retail.
There will be four shops to be leased long-term at Bella Vista Station. Image: Supplied
Owned by Sydney Metro, the sites are on surplus land from constructing the stations and will be developed and sold off in stages over a period of up to 10 years.
Four 45-square-metre shops within a new retail building outside the ticketed area at Bella Vista Station are among the properties that will not be further developed down the track and are long-term leases. Tenants have the option of combining the shops into one.
Rouse Hill’s Tallawong Station, Kellyville Station and Hills Showground Station each have one 100-square-metre land lots for short-term lease, while two newly built shops are to be leased long-term at the Cherrybrook Station plaza.
While the landlord for the retail spaces in phase one was Northwest Rapid Transit, the properties in the latest round are being leased out by Sydney Metro and Landcom.
NRT is a consortium comprising Australian companies John Holland Group, UGL Rail Services, CPB Contractors and Plenary Group, as well as Hong Kong’s MTR Corporation.
An artist’s impression of the biggest lease listing at Bella Vista Station. Image: Supplied
Savills leasing agent David Kleiner said during the first phase of leasing, all 360 square metres of retail properties were leased out across the 12 Northwest Metro and train stations in phase one, with some spaces as small as 10 square metres.
Hills Showground in Castle Hill accounted for 120 square metres of the total, while spaces in North Ryde, Macquarie University and Macquarie Park ranged from 25 to 44 square metres.
Annual rents offered by the 300 prospective tenants vying for retail space in phase one were between $750 a square metre and $5700 a square metre. That highest offer was bid on a 10-square-metre space by a café-type operator and was considered pricey for a station kiosk.
“That’s something you’d expect to pay if you were sitting in a Westfield Shopping Centre,” Mr Kleiner said.
He said the rent for retail spaces at transport stations was typically lower than those in shopping centres as some of them tended to be busy only at certain times during the week.
“You’ve got a small window in the morning and afternoons to capture your market and be able to sell your services and products; it’s only a few hours a day from the peak hours.”
The Northwest component of the Sydney Metro will open in 2019. Source: Sydney Metro
A mixture of cafes, barber shops, florists, medical clinics, juice bars was selected as tenants in the first round. Although major brands, which were mostly food-based, were interested particularly in the larger spaces, most were held back by the restrictions against cooking hot food near the stations.
“For a lot of those stations, it wasn’t the person who’s paying the most rents that got the space. For us, it’s about getting something complementary in stations and we want something sustainable, it’s not about milking it for the rents,” Mr Kleiner.
The new Sydney Metro Northwest trains will start running in the first half of 2019.
Expressions of interest for phase two closes October 19.
