Chinese investors snap up Metro Market at Biggera Waters, Ashmore Pitstop shopping centre for sale

Chinese investors have spent nearly tens of millions to buy a Gold Coast shopping centre that last changed hands in 2015, following another massive office building sale.

Chinese investors have spent nearly $40m to buy a Gold Coast shopping centre that last changed hands for $23m in 2015.

The Metro Market at Biggera Waters has been bought by Victorian-based Guohui Kuang and Wei Zhang via company Biggera Vision.

The Hollywell Rd centre, anchored by a Drakes supermarket, has 39 tenants, including major banks.

The sale is the latest in a rush on Gold Coast shopoping centre assets, including a multi billion-dollar deal for Pacific Fair, a 50 per cent stake in Runaway Bay Centre for $128m and a half share of Harbour Town for $385m.

Metro Market at Biggera Waters in 2014.

It has been sold by Sydney funds manager Argus Property Partners for $39.4m and is one of three properties it acquired on the Gold Coast between 2015 and 2019.

It paid $23.01m for Metro Market, $42.8m for the seven-building Hope Island Central, and $25.1m for the three-building Bermuda Point commercial property at Varsity Lakes.

Hope Island Central and Bermuda Point, since re-named Varsity One, sit in individual Argus-managed property funds.

Shopping centre hit markets for first time in decades

A convenience shopping centre built by an “old timer” of the property industry in the 1990s is being sold.

Pit Stop Ashmore was developed by Norm Rix close to the Ashmore City shopping centre, which he embarked upon more than 40 years ago.

Mr Rix, who turned 87 on Tuesday, sold Ashmore City for $30.7m in 1998 but retained Pit Stop.

The retail centre is being sold by daughter Leanne Cowley, via company Lee Lou, an entity that when in Mr Rix’s control was called Old Timer Trading.

Mr Rix on Monday said he decided many years ago to transfer property assets to family members while he was still alive and Pit Stop came into that category.

He said his daughter was selling Pit Stop to diversify her investments.

The 406 Nerang Rd property is being sold via an expressions-of-interest campaign run by CBRE’s Sebastian Fahey, Mark Witheriff and Michael Hedger.

Its tenants include Subway, BWS and Zambrero and CBRE says the net annual return, when fully leased, is $685,000.

The 3547sq m site has a 107-metre frontage to a road travelled by 250,000 cars a day.

Coast’s biggest property sale of 2022 – so far

February 28: Harvey Norman executive Steve Cavalier has made an out-of-store big-ticket sale – he has sold his home in Mermaid Beach’s Multi-Millionaires’ Row for $21.75m.

The deal on 213 Hedges Ave comes 18 years after he bought the beachfront property for $19m, setting a record for the street.

That record for a completed home was only topped in 2020 when billionaire developer Bob Ell paid $22.6m for 187-191 Hedges Ave.

SEE ALL THE MILLION-DOLLAR PLUS SALES FOR JANUARY HERE >>

213 Hedges Ave, Mermaid Beach

Steve Cavalier and Belinda Dawes.

The off-market Cavalier sale is the highest price achieved for a Gold Coast home in 2022.

The buyers are believed to be Ross and Megan Jurisich, who last month sold a home on a double lot in Mermaid Beach’s Seaside Ave for $7.61m.

Mr Jurisich and two Byron Bay friends founded the Stone & Wood brewing business, which was sold to fellow brewer Lion in September for a reported $500m.

The Cavalier sale was handled by Ron London, principal of London Estate Agents, who also marketed the Jurisich Seaside Ave property.

He yesterday would not comment on the buyers but said they had secured a timeless residence on a prime northeast corner position.

The home was built by property agent Harry Kakavas on a $4m site, completed at a cost of another $4m in 2003, and sold the following year for a record $18m – a sale that generated national publicity.

213 Hedges Avenue, Mermaid Beach was advertised as the ultimate Gold Coast lifestyle home.

Views out to the ocean. Picture: Murray Rix.

Buyer Jerry Pilarinos sold the home to Mr Cavalier in 2006. The house, on a 796sq m site, has a 20-metre beach frontage.

It has four bedrooms with ensuites and a guest apartment.

The 69-year-old Mr Cavalier previously has owned at least three beachfront houses in Hedges Ave and also has dabbled in other residential investments.

The all-up top price Hedges Ave, $27m, was achieved in 2009 when drilling industry veteran Peter Mitchell and wife Deidre bought a part-built home spread over four lots.

Co-owner bails out of $43.5m premier office building

A quiet $43.5m ‘divorce’ has ended a turbulent period for Robina’s premier office building.

The two groups who bought The Rocket tower for $70.1m in 2015 have gone their own ways.

The Clarence property group, which had a half stake in the property, has bought full control of the 16-level building for $43.5m.

The deal ends an ownership period in which there were legal fireworks between it and the owner of the other half, Brisbane’s Sentinel group.

The upshot was a 2017 court case that was instigated by Clarence over management issues and won in 2019, with costs.

Another court move was fired up by Clarence last year and ended just before Christmas.

That ending coincided with the contract to move full control to Clarence, with the deal settled several weeks later.

The Rocket building at Robina Town Centre Drive, Robina.

Clarence has been holding its The Rocket in its Westlawn trust and the Sentinel stake was sitting in its Sentinel Robina Office Trust.

The Westlawn half share, bought for $35.05m, is showing on the Clarence website as having been revalued at some point to $39.25m.

Hence there’s been another uplift as a result of Sentinel selling out for $43.5m.

The agreement on price might well have been made easier by the Gold Coast’s highest price for an office building being achieved last year.

The 22-floor Fifty Cavill Avenue tower was sold for $113.5m.

The Clarence-Sentinel transaction hasn’t exactly been trumpeted from the rooftops.

There’s mention of The Rocket sale on the Sentinel website – and of a $1.63 a unit return to investors on their $1 units over six years and three months.

Sunrise reflecting off The Rocket building in Robina. Photo: BARRY BEVERIDGE, Robina.

Clarence, as of Friday, still was showing its Westlawn stake as a half share – perhaps it’s parked the new half elsewhere.

The 2019 Clarence court win saw the Rocket partners decide to end their relationship and sell the building, which at that point was netting $6.3m a year.

That income included a two-year rental guarantee on 15 per cent of the tower that was empty.

The sales effort didn’t have a successful outcome and Clarence went back to court last July.

The troubled six-year ­Clarence-Sentinel tenure at The Rocket followed on from other ‘episodes’ involving the 13-year-old tower.

The Robina Group built The Rocket as a strata-title property and completed it in 2009.

At the time, it was suggested it was a $110m exercise.

The strata-titling of the building was, in hindsight, not the best move made by the Robina Group.

Only six or so titles sold in the GFC environment and in 2015 the group decided to buy those titles back, spending around $5m, and to revert to a saleable single title.

The Rocket endured a rocky road in terms of publicity that centred around five floors leased by Allconnex Water in 2009.

The city council pulled the plug on Allconnex in 2012 and became liable for the water ­retailer’s $1.8m a year lease liability.

Up rolled the Members Alliance group which sub-let five floors, only to collapse in 2016 owing $1.1m in rent.

Fortuitously, the National Disability Insurance Scheme stepped in the following year and rented four of the floors for 10 years.

VIP Petfoods founder’s Palm Beach site set for auction

CHRISTINA Quinn, an investor in her own right since splitting with VIP Petfoods-Darrell Lea hubby Tony in 2016, could be set to make a tidy earn at Palm Beach.

She’s to auction a double north-east-facing block in the suburb’s beachfront Jefferson Lane, assembled at a cost of $8.4 million in an exercise that started in 2019.

VIP Pet Foods founders Tony and Christina Quinn at their Ormeau complex in 2013. Pic Tim Marsden

Christina, owner of a multi-level Southport office building, gained approval for eight single-floor apartments on the corner site and, with such land today fetching $13,000 a square metre, she could realise more than $10 million.

92-yr-old developer chases former Cav’s Steakhouse site buy

ARTHUR LOWE, a developer who turns 92 next month, has ‘Lowe-ered’ his sights by $3 million as he chases a buyer for the former Cav’s Steakhouse site at Labrador.

Arthur, one-time owner of the Horizon Shores marina, paid $7.5 million for the Frank St holding in 2019 and was seeking $11 million last year.

An auction last week for the land, approved for a 13-floor tower, drew a $7 million bid, a million dollars short of the veteran’s new $8 million target.

Taiwanese investors build on Broady block

TAIWANESE investors who have spent $22.5 million buying Broadbeach office block 16 Queensland Ave are believed to have spent at least a further $10 million putting together a tower site two blocks to the north.

The investors, via their Polycell Property Group, have secured an 1831 sqm holding occupied by the Vaucluse, Danna Lodge and Donna Lea low-rises.

The buildings comprise 15 units that front either Surf Pde or Britannia Ave but the GV group’s Antonio Mercuri, isn’t disclosing the end cost of the amalgamation.