Woolworths buys Coles supermarket site as rivalry hits NSW Central Coast
A new front in the battle for supermarket supremacy has opened on the NSW Central Coast, with Woolworths paying just over $51m for a complex currently anchored by a Coles store.
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A new front in the battle for supermarket supremacy has opened on the NSW Central Coast, with Woolworths swooping on a major complex now anchored by a Coles store.
Woolworths is believed to have snapped up the Lakeside Shopping Centre from the private Dunnet Properties, owned by Sydney property veteran Bob Dunnet, paying just over $51m to snare control of the site, which also carries approvals for luxury towers.
The deal will see Woolworths make the outlay for the supermarket but the real sting in the tail is that Coles will be forced to either set up shop elsewhere or cede the market to its rival.
The mooted purchase is part of the tit-for-tat battle between the supermarket rivals in which they have been buying up sites the competitor operates from and then tipping them out when the lease expires.
Last October, Woolworths pounced on a mall in Sydney’s Sutherland Shire where major competitor Coles is the main tenant. In that play it purchased Miranda Mall from boutique fund manager IP Generation for $68m. Coles’s lease expires in the Miranda centre expires in 2029.
That move came after a similar battle between the supermarkets centred around the Kirrawee Village shopping centre that opened in Sydney’s south in 2018.
Coles and Aldi won a bid to open their stores inside the $350m project but Woolworths promptly opened its own store across the road.
In 2013, the tables were turned when Coles shocked Woolworths by secretly snapping up its store in Neutral Bay on Sydney’s lower North Shore for about $40m.
The shopping centre and surplus development land around Lakeside were carefully amalgamated over more than three decades.
Mr Dunnett tried to offload the Central Coast site six years ago after winning approval from NSW’s Hunter Central Coast joint regional planning panel for a $300m redevelopment that capitalises on the large 2.14ha site.
The staged development application carried approval for residential, hotel and retail accommodation but Woolworths has refused to comment on its plans for the site.
The plans for the site would include a much larger shopping centre, a hotel, convention space and residential apartments. The scheme was for a shopping centre to be anchored by a new larger Coles supermarket.
There is also the potential for two tall towers. One would have about 270 residential apartments and another tower would have 168 apartments and 108 hotel rooms. There would also be 48 apartments over three levels above a podium.
Woolworths is undertaking apartment-heavy projects in Sydney at sites including Neutral Bay and Alexandria. The scale of the site and flexible zoning were key draw cards in the original sales campaign.
Originally published as Woolworths buys Coles supermarket site as rivalry hits NSW Central Coast
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