Shopping Centre

The under-pressure shopping centre market is about to receive its biggest test in years, with AMP’s funds arm exploring a sale of the $1.2 billion Garden City Shopping Centre south of Perth.

Woolworths has sold a suburban Perth shopping centre for $27.3million, but in a lucrative win for the new owners the supermarket giant could stay on as a tenant for another 60 years.

Shopping centre landlords are again turning to the residential market to bolster returns from their projects with several major companies planning apartment towers above or around their developments.

Chinese-backed private group Chaolong Developments is looking to expand its Melbourne property empire with the acquisition of the Century City Walk Shopping Centre and the adjoining 200-room Novotel Melbourne Glen Waverley hotel for more than $145 million.

New sole owners of the Waurn Ponds Shopping Centre have flagged future development to capture business from the expanding Armstrong Creek Growth Area.

A Toorak village shopping arcade has well and truly become the most expensive property to sell in the exclusive suburb, almost doubling the previous record.

The funds arm of property group Dexus is planning an elevated garden and sky lobby as part of a $200 million plan to transform Perth’s Carillon City shopping centre and create a new lifestyle precinct in the heart of the CBD.

Stockland is looking to pick up the pace of its asset sales program and has sold Tooronga Village Shopping Centre, in the Melbourne suburb of Glen Iris, to funds group Newmark Capital for close to $63 million.

Fund manager Australian Unity has offloaded its half-stake in a $300 million shopping centre in the regional Victorian centre of Geelong, helping cut into the estimated $11 billion worth of shopping centres on the market.