Dexus Offloads Beenleigh Shopping Centre for $85m

Dexus has sold a Brisbane fringe shopping centre for $85 million as interest in sub-regional shopping centres continues to surge.

Property investment and development firm Mintus has bought Brisbane’s Beenleigh Marketplace for $85 million from Dexus Wholesale Property Fund.

CBRE’s Simon Rooney negotiated the off-market sale of the centre.

The transaction follows Dexus’s sale in October of Shepparton Marketplace in Victoria for $88.1 million.

“The transaction demonstrates the continued demand for quality, metropolitan sub-regional assets with a focus on non-discretionary spending,” Rooney, CBRE head of retail capital markets, Pacific, said.

“There is particularly strong interest in assets which offer strategic value-add opportunities.”

Rooney said the Beenleigh Marketplace offered immediate potential to undertake targeted remixing of the centre’s speciality tenants.

“The substantial 60,680sqm, underutilised landholding also provides significant scope for future development opportunities,” he said.

The 20,252sq m centre occupies a prominent 56,290sq m site alongside an adjoining office building and ancillary land totalling 4390 square metres.

Located about 32km south-east of the Brisbane CBD, Beenleigh Marketplace is the focal point of the Beenleigh Town Centre, a central community, commercial and retail destination exhibiting robust economic and population growth.

The centre draws 2.6 million visitors each year and has an impressive moving annual turnover (MAT) of $117 million, including its strongly performing major tenant offering of Woolworths and Big W.

Rooney said investors had been attracted by the centre’s combined sales performance and the exceptional income security of the major tenants, coupled with the centre’s robust specialty productivity of $8753 a square metre, and occupancy cost of 12.5 per cent, well below the relevant industry benchmark.

Beenleigh Marketplace is expected to continue to benefit from the substantial population growth occurring in and around the centre, with the current resident population of some 115,000 people expected to grow by 2.3 per cent a year to 2036.

“The centre benefits from its strategic position along the Beenleigh and Gold Coast train line, where major residential developments will drive significant population growth, including the Yarrabilba masterplanned community, which is set to accommodate an additional 45,000 residents by 2050,” Rooney said.