St Mary’s Village shopping centre sold to Asian-backed buyer

The St Mary’s Village Shopping Centre in Sydney’s west.
The St Mary’s Village Shopping Centre in Sydney’s west.

Property heavyweight Mirvac has benefited from the strong appetite for well-located Sydney shopping centres with its St Marys Village trading for about $68 million to an Asian-backed investor.

The Susan Lloyd-Hurwitz-led company put the centre in the western Sydney suburb of St Marys on the block and will sell for about 36% above its book value of $50 million.

The deal also puts paid to suggestions that retail property assets will slump in value across the board with the centre’s strongly-trading Woolworths driving interest in the centre. Target is the other anchor.

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St Marys Village is a subregional centre that sits about 44km west of the Sydney CBD and 7.5km east of the Penrith CBD.

It is the only discount department store-based centre within the primary trade area.

The Woolworths supermarket also underwent a $6.5 million refurbishment completed in August 2008.

Investors are still chasing alternatives to low-yielding bank deposits and many established landlords bought earlier in the property cycle and are sitting on substantial gains, with few distressed sales on the horizon.

The subregional centre spans 15,904sqm and as well as Woolworths and Target there are 37 specialty stores and 551 spaces.

The complex is also in an area earmarked for a new rail link connecting to the new Western Sydney Airport.

The expansive 4.2ha site is zoned mixed-use with an FSR of 2.5:1 representing about 104,875sqm of total permissible space under existing planning controls.

With the Target expiry in 2021 and low gross rental of $111 per sqm the site was pitched as a rare renewal, re-leasing or redevelopment opportunity.

The complex sports a fully leased net income of $3.636 million per annum. Sam McVay and Dan McVay of McVay Real Estate and Carl Molony of Stonebridge marketed the property but declined to comment.

This article originally appeared on www.theaustralian.com.au/property.