Arndale Shopping Centre sold to Adelaide rich lister Nick DiMauro

Rich lister Nick DiMauro has added another mall to his growing retail portfolio, paying $128m for one of Adelaide’s largest suburban shopping centres.

Arndale Shopping Centre has been bought by Nick DiMauro.

Adelaide rich lister Nick DiMauro has added another mall to his growing retail portfolio, paying $128m for the Arndale Shopping Centre in his home city.

The deal follows a series of big ticket deals in the Adelaide market this year, with Scentre Group recently partnering up with investment bank Barrenjoey to pick up 50 per cent stakes in two Westfield centres – at West Lakes and Tea Tree Plaza.

Investment group MA Financial was seeking offers of more than $130m for the Arndale centre when it listed the property for sale through Colliers’ Lachlan MacGillivray and Matthew Lane from Dulwich Lane in July.

Mr DiMauro, who recently spent $82.5m on the Channel Court shopping centre in Hobart, said the tenancy mix and sizeable landholding at Arndale – in Adelaide’s northwestern suburbs – were compelling reasons for his latest acquisition.

Adelaide rich lister Nick DiMauro. Picture: Michael Marschall

“It’s been an icon centre for about five decades now,” he said.

“So it’s a very established centre and it’s got all the names that we need to ensure it’s a good centre.

“It’s very close to town, you’re only 7.5km, and it’s an enormous piece of real estate there. It ticked quite a few boxes.”

Set across a single level, the sub-regional centre is anchored by Woolworths, Aldi and Romeo’s Foodland supermarkets, as well as Big W and Harris Scarfe stores and a Hoyts Cinemas complex.

A mix of specialty tenants includes a post office, pharmacies, banking services, community services, bakeries and coffee shops, as well as a range of discretionary retailers and car parking for more than 1900 vehicles.

With the complex covering just 37 per cent of the 10.7ha site, Mr DiMauro said there was “plenty of potential for growth” through further development of surplus land.

Mr DiMauro has amassed a $1.3bn fortune through investment in more than 20 shopping centres, office buildings and development sites across South Australia, Queensland, Western Australia, NSW, Tasmania and New Zealand.

The Arndale Shopping Centre in Adelaide. Picture: Supplied

According to The Australian’s latest Richest 250 list, he now ranks as the third wealthiest South Australian, and comes in at 125 on the national list of Australia’s wealthiest people.

Shopping centres have emerged as the surprise packet of commercial real estate this year with several big malls changing hands as investors jump back into the market following the Covid-19 crisis which crunched values and rental levels.

While the cost of living crunch has continued to weigh on discretionary spending, DiMauro said his centres continued to trade well and he remained bullish about the longer term prospects.

“Interest rates have gone probably as high as they probably need to go in this cycle, so I think things are going to eventually come up a little bit,” he said.

MA Financial picked up the Arndale centre as part of its acquisition of Armada Funds Management in 2017. Armada acquired the property in 2014 for $152m.

Originally published as Arndale Shopping Centre sold to Adelaide rich lister Nick DiMauro