KEY POINTS:
A large foreign-listed investment fund has bought a Hastings sports park, in a signal that major Australian investors are still keen to buy property here.
ASX-listed Charter Hall Group already owns the $18 million Harvey Norman Centre in Dunedin and the Foodtown supermarket at Auckland's Quay Park, which it bought this year for $28 million.
Now, the investor has paid $18.6 million for the Nelson Park Athletics Track in Hastings, a 5.1ha property where a large formal retail centre is planned.
Neil Berryman, general manager for Charter Hall's New Zealand operations, said the $2 billion development fund had committed 20 per cent of its business to New Zealand, so the fund was hunting for development work worth about $200 million.
The Hastings property was the first New Zealand purchase for Charter Hall's development fund - its investment fund bought the other two properties - so Berryman is hunting for more deals.
"We're also looking at commercial office and industrial development. The commercial development work will be in the CBDs of the major cities."
Charter Hall established a new fund last year when it moved across the Tasman to comb the main centres for office, industrial and retail property investments. The business has A$2.8 billion in property funds management and a market capitalisation of A$1.2 billion.
Berryman said the business wanted to work with the Hastings District Council to ensure there was a quality development on the site.
The council had recognised retail needs in the community were not being met because of the lack of appropriately zoned and suitably sized retail sites, Charter Hall said.
So to ensure the future of the Hastings area, it had decided to sell Nelson Park and adjoining land for the retail development. The site could take a shopping centre with 18,800 sq m of floorspace and parking for 773 cars.
Berryman said Charter Hall was in negotiation with two major anchor tenants who will take over the bulk of the site.
The shopping centre would be worth about $65 million. "Based on the existing plan, shops will be leased to a further five tenants," he said.
"But we've taken over the development as the council had planned it."
Charter Hall said it had more than $2 billion of development projects either finished or under way.
Berryman said a new sports park was being developed by the council on the outskirts of Hastings.
