Woolworths scoops up Mordialloc Plaza in Melbourne for $41 million
Woolworths has purchased the Mordialloc Plaza in Melbourne, where they were an anchor tenant, for $41 million.
The supermarket giant currently has a 10-year lease at the premises expiring in 2025 with three and seven-year options.
Francis Chen and his daughter Kimberley, a private Singaporean family, sold the 6,874-square-metre site in the city’s southeast. It is believed that this is the only property in Australia that the family own and they are selling to free up some cash.
“I have been told that market conditions for vendors are at the best they have been for 50 years,” selling agent Mark Wizel from CBRE says.
“There are low levels of debt and this sold on a 4.39-per-cent yield.
“There is a high underlying land value with this property.”
Located at 600 Main Street, Mordialloc, the single level centre with 4,352 square metres of gross floor area has space for up to 120 cars to park.
The property, with 11 speciality shops leasing there to national tenants including Flight Centre, Subway, Bakers Delight and Domino’s, was sold with a net estimated income, fully leased, of $1.8 million.
Mordialloc is forecast to have a strong population growth due to increasing housing density with the resident population of the municipality expected to grow by 17 per cent to 189,967 residents by 2036.
“We are seeing a lot of vendors being tempted to sell,” Mr Wizel says. “Which is understandable because market conditions are very favourable.”
CBRE recently sold seven shopping centre and supermarket assets since March 2018 totalling $229 million, including the freestanding Coles Clayton property. That sold for $17 million on a record yield for supermarkets of 2.57 per cent.
“Retail assets with a focus towards convenience and non-discretionary tenants remain highly sought after given their track record of weathering fluctuations in economic trends,” Mr Wizel says.
“But it is also about the fact that retail assets provide exceptional value, both now and into the future, in a market buoyed by the strongest sustained population, read catchment, growth in the nation.”
