The Warrawong Plaza Fund has acquired the Warrawong Plaza Shopping Centre, located in Wollongong, New South Wales’ third largest city.
The double supermarket, double discount department store anchored shopping centre has been acquired via an off-market transaction for $136.35 million. This price reflects a fully leased yield of 7.75% p.a. and is well below its $253 million replacement cost. These acquisition metrics compare very favourably to recent comparable shopping centre transactions.
Warrawong Plaza is situated on a prominent 7-hectare corner site with exposure to 45,000+ vehicles travelling daily along Wollongong’s main arterial roads. The Centre has a long-standing position within the Wollongong retail market, providing unparalleled amenity to its well-established trade area – a precinct that continues to experience positive demographic change and retail growth. Warrawong Plaza is well positioned to benefit from $12 billion of recently completed and planned government and private infrastructure investment that will underpin the long-term growth of the Wollongong economy.
The Fund’s value-add Repositioning Strategy will transform Warrawong Plaza into a strongly performing triple supermarket, single DDS asset. The Centre will provide a superior convenience offering to its competition and will be the only centre in the Greater Wollongong region offering all three major supermarket brands.
Execution of the Fund’s Repositioning Strategy has been secured via preliminary agreements to:
- Introduce a new full line Woolworths supermarket, incorporating e-commerce fulfilment facilities, replacing the underperforming Target DDS
- Extend the lease of Big W for an additional 5 year term, incorporating a new store fit-out
- Introduce new essential needs service providers (including a childcare centre) to the upper-level precinct
- Provide debt finance for the required Capital Expenditure
