Local investor buys Bellarine Village Shopping Centre for $36.5m

Bellarine Village SC (1)A Melbourne-based investor has bought the Bellarine Village Shopping Centre for $36.5 million.

Located on the Bellarine Highway at Newcomb, the 10,443sqm (GLA) neighborhood centre is anchored by Woolworths (with a 25-year lease) and Dan Murphys (15 years) and has other 16 specialty retailers including The Reject Shop (with a five-year lease), Safeway Petrol Plus (five years) and Hungry Jacks (15 years), returning an estimated $2.3 million per annum.

The 2.3 hectare site, which has four street frontages, four access points and provides parking for 315 car, was sold on a passing yield of 5.8 per cent.

According to CBRE, the Bellarine Village Shopping Centre was the fourth shopping centre to sell in a month through CBRE’s retail investments team bringing it to a total of $160 million.

Mark Wizel, CBRE national director Investments who brokered the deal with Justin Dowers and Joseph Du Rieu, said demand for shopping centres, particularly well positioned centres with development and/or rental growth upside has seen no decline despite talk of an investment hiatus and ever tightening yields.

“Retail is, as ever, the darling of the investment market,” Wizel said. “If anything there has been a new intensity in interest as investors focus not simply on secure lease covenants and rental returns but on genuine upside provided by prime, city centre, sites, which offer exceptional future development potential.”

Dowers said the exceptional response to the marketing campaign, which generated 127 enquiries, had also recognised the massive catchment growth prospects of the local area.

“Geelong is one of Victoria’s fastest growing regions with a forecast 32 per cent increase in population by 2036 and Bellarine Peninsula is expected to experience an even stronger rate of growth of 63 per cent by 2036,” Dowers said. “That is extraordinary growth and growth which will deliver the sort of catchment which underpins the most successful neighborhood centres. And that is exactly what investors are looking for.”

Dowers said the fact that they are now seeing shopping centre investments within Geelong and the Bellarine Peninsula trade at similar returns and pricing levels to metropolitan Melbourne adds to the attraction.

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