Channel Court Shopping Centre at Kingston sold for record-breaking price of $82.5m

Formerly owned by the Behrakis family, one of Tasmania’s biggest retail centres has sold for a record-breaking sum to an Adelaide-based buyer.

Channel Court Shopping Centre has been sold for a record-breaking price. Picture: Supplied

Channel Court Shopping Centre has been sold for a record-breaking price of $82.5m in what amounts to the biggest retail deal in Tasmania’s history.

Located at Kingston, the shopping hub is understood to have been sold by Challenger Group to Nick DiMauro, who is based in Adelaide.

The retail centre was redeveloped in 2005 after being purchased by the Behrakis family for $12m. It was later sold to Challenger Group in 2015 for $76m.

Encompassing more than 25,000 sq/m, Channel Court is anchored by Woolworths and Big W. It generates more than $150m in moving annual turnover and has 84 specialty stores.

The sale of the mall, which is the only sub-regional retail centre south of the Hobart CBD, is said to be the largest sale of its kind ever recorded in Tasmania, eclipsing the previous sale of the same site. Before that, the 2009 offloading of Northgate in Glenorchy held the record, being dealt for $70.1m.

Channel Court Shopping Centre at Kingston has been sold for a record-breaking price. Picture: Supplied

Real estate firm JLL brokered the Channel Court sale, led by agents Nick Willis and Sam Hatcher. It was subject to a formal expressions of interest process.

“The offering received broad interest, with seven formal bids received and reaffirms the continued market demand for dominant convenience-based sub-regional centres,” Mr Willis said.

“We are continuing to see a shift in the weight of capital seeking these sub-regional assets both locally and offshore. The buyer profile continues to evolve, attracted to the sector’s fundamentals and value propositions.”

JLL senior analyst retail investments Nathan Lin said Channel Court presented a “unique offering” to the market and that investors were “attracted to the relatively low average rents, some 43 per cent below the benchmark”.

“This combined with zero vacancy and occupancy costs of approximately 7 per cent reinforced the long-term income growth trajectory of the asset,” he said.

Kingston is a boom suburb, experiencing population growth of 11.8 per cent (4238 additional people) between 2016-2021.

This represents an average annual population change of 2.3 per cent per year over the five-year period.

Originally published as Channel Court Shopping Centre at Kingston sold for record-breaking price of $82.5m