Adelaide’s Gawler Green Shopping Centre has come to market as neighbourhood shopping centres continue to be the most resilient in the retail investment sector.
The neighbourhood centre, anchored by a full-line Coles Supermarket and 14 specialties, resides on one of Adelaide’s fastest growing metropolitan regions and sits on a site with high development potential.
JLL’s Managing Director (SA), Ben Parkinson and Joint Head of Retail Investments – Australia, Jacob Swan, together with Leedwell Property’s Andrew Zammit and Jamie Guerra have been appointed to sell the Gawler Green Shopping Centre via an expressions of interest campaign, which will close on the 20 October.
Swan said, “The sale of neighbourhood shopping centres reached a record high in FY21 at $2.6 billion nationally. The strength of investment activity is reflective of the defensive underlying performance of the centres and the boost in grocery sales over the last 12 months.”
“Despite some normalising in the rate of growth, supermarket turnover is still 9.4% higher nationally than before the pandemic (as at May 2021), including 7.8% higher in South Australia,” he said.
The Gawler Green Shopping centre generates approximately $2.1 million per annum and offers a standalone Hungry Jack’s restaurant, situated on its own title.
Zammit said many of South Australia’s neighbourhood centres were strong performers and tightly held assets, and this was reflected in the prices achieved.
“The most recent sale in South Australia of a stand-alone supermarket was Drakes at Salisbury in 2020, which reflected a 5.1% yield. By comparison, recent sales of centres interstate have demonstrated yields consistently below 5%. These include Woolworths Bulli in NSW and Greenvale Lakes and Bellarine Village in Victoria,” Parkinson said.
According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), annual retail trade growth in South Australia reached 7.8% in June 2021, retreating marginally from the cyclical high of 9.4% in April 2021 – the highest rate of rolling annual growth since December 2008.
The site is adjacent to a high customer driving Bunnings store
“The growth has been broad-based with spending in categories related to a population spending more time at home increasing significantly. On a rolling annual basis to June 2021, spending on household goods (comprising furniture and housewares, electrical goods, and hardware and gardening supplies) reached 14.7%, retreating moderately from a historical high of 23.3% recorded in March 2021,” Parkinson said.
The 16,530m2 site at Tulloch Road sits within a strong retail precinct nestled adjacent to Bunnings Warehouse to the west and opposite to the immediate south is an ALDI supermarket. The centre forms part of a larger activity centre which is located on the prominent signalised intersection of Main North Road and Tulloch Road. This intersection benefits from approximately 21,400 passing vehicles per day.
“Gawler is a key regional service centre for communities to the north of Adelaide and forms the gateway to the famous Barossa Valley as well as rural areas north of Adelaide. Gawler is a rapidly growing satellite and commuter area for the metropolitan areas of Adelaide. These population drivers have delivered strong MAT growth for the centre and offers purchasers a secure core income from the major tenants coupled with strong income growth potential,” Guerra concluded.
