Lower Hutt Retail Centre Offers Strong Investment Credentials

A popular and well-performing retail complex at the Wellington city end of High Street, Lower Hutt, has been placed on the market for sale.

Located on a prominent site with customer access and a wide frontage from High Street, along with service access from Daly Street, the shopping complex is fully-tenanted with seven well-known tenants including Unichem Pharmacy, Fix Federation, Wellington Seamarket and Mad Butcher.

The centre returns $428,686 per annum with net leases and an average weighted lease term of 4.5 years.

Built in two stages in 2004/2005, the property offers 1,678sqm lettable retail area with 31 off-street car parks on 2,864sqm land. The well-presented property has an assessed 70 percent seismic rating.

Agents Paul Cudby and Grant Young of Bayleys Commercial Wellington are marketing the property for its Lower Hutt-based family owners with tenders closing 4pm, 11th March.

“This is a great example of a very functional and cleverly-leased compact retail complex where customer convenience reigns,” says Cudby.

“The complex has an enviable leasing history with minimal vacancy since opening and the complementary retail offerings are a good fit for the site.

“There’s a pharmacy, liquor store, butcher, fish and chip takeaways, wet fish market, ethnic food market, specialty bakery and an ATM machine, so the complex provides a supermarket alternative for the city with plenty of on-site parking.”

With a population of 105,000, Lower Hutt city is undergoing significant change at this end of town with several new residential apartment developments progressing and a Sebel hotel project underway.

“Some of the region’s more progressive developers have seen real value in the Lower Hutt market and have been proactively creating residential options for the city and in doing, so, transforming the vibe of the CBD,” says Young.

“Several of these apartment complexes are being retro-fitted into existing buildings such as the conversion of the old post office in High Street and the Public Trust building in Daly Street.

“The Wellington Company is also converting the former BNZ building and site in High Street into a retail and residential development to be known as the High Street Quarter.”

Hutt City Council is progressing its plans to create a water-facing profile for the city via a proposed $51 million urban design project. This will see a riverside promenade along the Hutt River featuring shops, cafes and apartments effectively turning the city towards the river.

The retail complex for sale is in a prime positon to leverage off both this initiative and the growing residential opportunities being fast-tracked in the central area, according to Cudby.

“It is supremely-placed to benefit from bigger-picture thinking for Lower Hutt is seeing real signs of revitalisation and investment,” he says.

“The Central Commercial zoning overlay for the subject property is a mixed-use zone allowing offices, retail and residential and as the property is in the 30-metre height limit sub-zone, there’s inherent flexibility for the site long-term”.

The retail complex construction comprises reinforced concrete floor slabs with steel portal frames, tilt slab concrete panel walls with purlin deck wall cladding above and an iron roof.

The shop frontages have full-height aluminium glazing allowing natural light, and automatic glass entry doors. Many of the tenancies have mezzanine office floors and all are serviced with individual toilet facilities.

Each tenant has completed their own fit-out particular to their retail offering, and there is a dedicated rear service area for each tenancy.

The property is close to north-bound and south-bound on-ramps via Melling Link and Dowse Interchange which streamlines traffic movements.

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