More of historic Emerald Hill Terrace sold down
PodCo and Terraplex – both founded by Anthony Wilson – have divested two more shops subdivided out of the Emerald Hill Terrace complex in South Melbourne’s Clarendon Street retail strip.
With the sales of #354 and #358, the 11th and 12th offerings, the owners are in the black, having reaped $28.55 million.
They paid Australia’s honorary consul to Monaco, Andrew Cannon, $27.5m for the unique property in 2015, then, three years later, starting selling the 14 shops – with second level offices or apartments – separately.
The remaining properties are at the south west corner of Bank St. Based on the rates achieved for past properties, a price tag north of $6m should be easily attainable.
Emerald Hill Terrace
On the west side of the road, between Bank and Park streets, Emerald Hill Terrace was developed in 1881.
It was held for decades by the state government which sold it to Mr Cannon for $5.7m in 1997.
PodCo and Terraplex snapped it up on a 4.2 per cent yield.
Mr Wilson only intended to sell one subdivided shop this month – #354, occupied by Pondok Nasi Bakar – which was auctioned and attracted seven registered bidders, four who contested.
The sale price – $1.735m – reflected a 4.29pc yield, a building rate of $8852 per sqm and a land rate of $10,515 per sqm.
“Forty five minutes after the auction…the Stonebridge team transacted #358 [which wasn’t for sale],” Stonebridge’s Nic Hage, who marketed the asset with Rorey James and Sarah Xi, said.
Majority leased to Mark Bouris’ Yellow Brick Road and before that the South Melbourne Newsagency, that property traded for $1.81m – a 2.81pc yield or $8080 per sqm for the building and $10,402 per sqm for the land.
Both buyers were China based investors sourced from the agency’s Asia Practice (story continues below).
“The vendor was in a fortunate position where was a strong level of bidding depth,” Mr James said.
“This provided the opportunity to transact the second asset to an underbidder,” he added.
“The strong and competitive auction of 354 Clarendon St was instrumental to the second result, investors took comfort in the bidding activity and were inclined to try and purchase the property in an off-market capacity,” according to the executive.
Saving the best until last
Following the sales, PodCo and Terraplex have two more Emerald Hill Terrace shops to sell – at the south west corner of Bank St, these are set to be offered in one line, or separately, mid-year.
“The remaining property has excellent fundamentals, with triple street frontage, 623 sqm of underlying land and a lease to longstanding tenant Rokk Ebony,” Mr Hage said.
“Clarendon St is a highly regarded precinct” he added.
“The direct link to the CBD, popular South Melbourne Market and a significant amount of recent development continues to attract interest from investors and occupiers,” according to the executive.
“As we saw with the sales of Grill’d Glen Waverley at 89 Kingsway (which sold for $6,236,000 reflecting a 2.66pc yield), Zimmerman Armadale ($7.3m/2.49pc) and Liquorland Windsor ($5.2m/2.55pc) late in 2022, there remains strong appetite for leased strip retail investments in prime locations”.
Five suitors registered to bid for 354 Clarendon St were Asia-based.
“With the loosening of boarder restrictions between China and Australia, coupled with the influx of students returning to Victoria, we expect an uptick of enquiry from Asian buyers,” Ms Xi said.
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