New year, new owner for Windsor Marketplace

Windsor Marketplace has sold for more than $22 million.
Windsor Marketplace has sold for more than $22 million.

A prime 22-year lease to Woolworths saw heated competition for a suburban shopping centre in Sydney’s north west.

Windsor Marketplace sold for $22.6 million in one of the first major retail deals of 2019, with offshore investors among those to make a play for the neighbourhood centre.

Local property investor and developer Holdmark Property Group won the keys to the Kable St property, representing a sharp yield of just under 6.5%.

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The 5326sqm shopping centre was redeveloped in 2011 and is anchored by Woolworths, BWS and MyHealth Medical Centre, while also counting a number of smaller specialty stores among its tenancies.

The centre is 98.5% leased with a weighted average lease expiry of more than 11 years, while generating annual fully-leased income of $1.5 million.

The property includes a number of components, including the shopping centre, a medical centre and a residential cottage.

Savills’ Steven Lerche and Andrew Palmer brokered the deal in conjunction with Stonebridge Property Group’s Jonathan Fox and Philip Gartland.

Palmer says shopping centres continue to be a rare and therefore popular commodity within the wider Sydney market.

“Given the lack of quality neighbourhood shopping centres that are formally offered to the market within the Sydney metropolitan area, we received significant interest from prospective buyers,” he says.

“The buyer was attracted to the shopping centre’s excellent income security, with 79% of gross lettable area leased to anchor tenants Woolworths and BWS until 2033.”

Fox says there is also potential to subdivide, on-sell or rent out a freestanding residential cottage that is a part of the property, fronting Baker St.