Kaisercraft Leases to Buy Its New Geelong Headquarters
Kaisercraft will consolidate its operations from several industrial locations, to a large 7,600 square metre office warehouse facility, recently vacated by the Sands Print Group.
Kaisercraft will pay an annual rent of $390,000 for two years to lease the factory, on a 1.95 hectare block at 2 Bayldon Court Breakwater, south-east of Geelong. After that time in 2010, Kaisercraft will then buy the property for $4.2 million, a price agreed on November 1, 2008.
Philip Prowse Real Estate managing director Philip Prowse negotiated the Breakwater lease and sale transaction on behalf of the property’s vendors, a consortium of four private investors. The Sands Print Group recently relocated to a new purpose built facility in Derrimut, about 17 kilometers west of Melbourne.
Mr Prowse said given the current economic landscape, vendors are becoming more flexible in the way they put lease and sales together.
He said a low interest rate environment, as is the case now, traditionally results in a greater number of owner occupiers being in the market. This is because the gap between mortgage repayments, and rents they may have negotiated, are much less.
“Owner occupiers are far more active than investors right now,” said Mr Prowse. “Many would like to buy, but want some flexibility in sales terms, that might not have existed in the recent past.”
Mr Prowse said Kaisercraft has the option of settling on the Geelong property earlier than 2010.
He said the Geelong industrial market appeals to many businesses and operators, being about the same distance drive from the Melbourne CBD as the much larger and more expensive industrial areas around Dandenong. He said Geelong is the established industrial market in the Bellarine Peninsula region, but said major industrial development is also underway at Torquay.
