Land next to M1 motorway for sale, with approval for new service centres

Anthony Bray, Cushman & Wakefield’s head of sales and investments for NSW, estimates the income when both are completed would be about $5 million a year and “fuel station operators have said they’ll be seeking a minimum 20-year lease”.

“Amortised on a yield basis, the project will certainly be worth north of $80 million as a development,” he said.

As well as the petrol stations and truck stops, the sites have been approved for five fast food outlets, a convenience store, two drive-through facilities, 148 customer car parks and numerous truck and caravan parks. There’s already been interest expressed from a range of fast-food outlets such as McDonald’s and Hungry Jacks.

The M1 motorway is one of the busiest roads in the country. Photo: Max Mason-Hubers

“This is such a large-scale opportunity, it’s in a league of its own,” says Cushman & Wakefield service station specialist Yosh Mendis. “It’s such a rare thing to have two sites this large either side of the motorway – and one that couldn’t be a busier road – and it’s going to be a fantastic investment.

“There’s going to be an array of buyer profiles, from a number of institutional investors to operators and developers looking at something like this, all with different motivations for such an asset. The only competitor is the Caltex Twin Centres at Wyong, and there won’t be any more coming online. It’s an unbelievable prospect.”

The idea of buying land either side of the Sydney-to-Newcastle motorway, about 29 kilometres north of Wyong and 47 kilometres south of Newcastle, was the brainchild of Tindale Property director Nick Perks and his former business partner.

He’d been driving regularly from Sydney to the Hunter Valley, where he has investments, and realised a decent rest stop was vital on a road that annually sees around 18.25 million cars pass by. The NSW Government’s Roads and Maritime Services agreed, and for 10 years he negotiated with them, Lake Macquarie Council, and owners of land by the motorway to buy, with investment partners, and rezone, two sites.

The development applications were finally passed last year, and now they’ve been put up for sale, with an estimated price guide of at least $15 million for the pair.

Both sites together total almost 40 hectares and took a decade to bring to the market.

The northbound area covers 25.79 hectares of freehold space at Cooranbong, 120 kilometres north of Sydney, while the southbound site comprises 12.89 hectares at Dora Creek, also in Cooranbong.

“To have such a long stretch of such a busy road with only the one service station at Wyong didn’t seem right, and the price differential between fuel being sold there and fuel in Sydney was quite significant,” Mr Perks said.

“Hopefully this will make a difference to the price of fuel being offered, and also make sure motorists have a place to stop between Wyong and Newcastle, as well as offering employment opportunities for local people.”

Cooranbong, until now, has been best known as the home of the Seventh Day Adventists’ Church in Australia. It was the place Michael Chamberlain took refuge in with his family when his wife Lindy was wrongly convicted of the murder of their daughter Azaria, and jailed.

The church was the main objector to the scheme to rezone the land for service stations. “I think they were afraid they’d be an interruption to the place and bring noise and traffic, but the only access, really, is from the freeway,” said Mr Perks. “But we bought the land from a private individual and a mining company. If (the church had) have owned the land, I don’t think they would have sold it.”

Mr Bray believes global fuel companies and Australian brands will be interested in operating the centres, especially since the existing Caltex centres at Wyong, with their 20-year monopoly over fuel sales on that stretch of road, are so successful.

“We believe they would be the most profitable Caltex centres in Australia and with the highest volume of sales,” he said.