Gerry Harvey Secures Ipswich Bunnings

Retail giant Gerry Harvey has purchased a freestanding Bunnings Warehouse located in the Ipswich suburb of Booval for $10.8 million.

The 8,606 square metre warehouse property, forms part of the Booval Homemaker Centre.

The sale was negotiated by Savills Retail Sales’ Peter and Jon Tyson on behalf of a private owner.

The Booval Homemaker complex comprises of six freestanding retail buildings and car parking for approximately 530 vehicles.

The centre is located 3 kilometres from Ipswich CBD on Brisbane Road.

Two new Bunnings superstores are currently under development for the Ipswich trade area.

Peter Tyson said the property attracted a strong line-up of developers looking to reposition the asset and several owner-occupiers in what was a well contested sale process with multiple bidders.

He said the scale and flexibility of the opportunity and Bunnings proposal to vacate to a new location in nearby Bundamba were the key drivers in buyers’ interest in the property.

Jon Tyson said buyers were attracted to the location of the property in the pre-eminent retail strip in Ipswich, the evident tenant options available to reposition the asset and interim holding income.

The Booval purchase is the latest purchase in a string of investments in Queensland’s retail property sector by the acquisitive retailing billionaire Gerry Harvey, including the $15 million purchase of the remaining 50% of the Browns Plains Homemaker Centre from FKP in 2012 and the $16.175 million Cairns Hypermarket deal in 2013 from Charter Hall’s PFA Fund.

Harvey Norman is a tenant in both centres and in time intends to occupy the Booval complex.

The sale of the Bunnings Booval property is the latest in a number of retail sales transacted by Savills in Brisbane’s western growth corridor, including the sale of Home HQ Retail Centre in West Ipswich for $23.5 million on behalf of Charter Hall in 2013.