Pizza shop, bakery and gym break Ivanhoe price record

A pizza shop and a bakery downstairs, with a gym and personal trainer upstairs; this just might be the smartest set up for an investment property ever.

The clever combination has helped make a property at 137-139 Upper Heidelberg Rd, Ivanhoe, the priciest shopfront ever sold in the suburb.

The long-time family owner of the property, who originally ran a fruit shop from the address, sold the property to a private investor in a $5.225 million auction that had six bidders and three of them still going past $5 million, on June 1.

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Fitzroys commercial real estate director Chris Kombi says double-fronted shops in the Ivanhoe village were rare.

“You might only get one or two chances to buy in that strip a year,” Kombi says.

“And to buy a double-fronted premise there is even rarer.”

Despite a range of developments along the popular shopping strip in recent years, the buyer will hang onto it as an investment with five-year leases to the current tenants part of the attraction, Kombi adds.

Double-fronted Ivanhoe hops are incredibly rare on the market.

Today it is home to Romano’s Restaurant and Laurent Boulangerie and Patisserie on the ground level, as well as Vision Personal Training upstairs.

The result highlighted the area’s low vacancy rates and strong mix of businesses, including a range of longstanding businesses.

“Whenever you see a retail strip with a virtually zero vacancy rate and properties rarely coming up for sale means you have a good combination going,” Mr Kombi said.

Ivanhoe Traders treasurer Zack Silvestro, who runs Coffee Plus nearby, says the result is very positive for the strip.

A bakery is one of the tenants at the Upper Heidelberg Rd property.

“I think it’s great news that something has gone up to that amount and it shows that people are looking at the area and seeing it as a growth strip,” Silvestro says.

The next nearest top sale in the suburb was for the Commonwealth Bank building at the corner of Upper Heidelberg Rd and Livingstone St, which changed hands for $4.04 million in 2011, according to CoreLogic records.

The strip’s community feeling, about 12km distance from Melbourne’s CBD and the nearby parks that encourage locals to get out into the neighbourhood are all factors in the appeal of the Ivanhoe village, he says.

This article from the Herald Sun originally appeared as “Record setting Ivanhoe shop home to pizza, cakes and a gym”.