Make a beeline for the Honey Centre

The Honey Centre is a popular tourist spot along State Highway One near Warkworth. Photo / Supplied

There is a long-term lease sweetener with this deal in an area popular with lifestyle property owners.

The property housing the well known Honey Centre, on State Highway One just outside Warkworth, is being offered for sale with a new 12-year lease to the popular visitor attraction which has been operating from the 2.28 hectare site since 1992.

Containing a substantial honey processing and retail outlet, the property, at 7 Perry Rd, Warkworth, on the corner with SH1, is being marketed by Mike Ashton and Peter Migonouff of Bayleys Real Estate's commercial sales team; and John Barnett of Bayleys Warkworth.

It will be put up for auction in Bayleys' central Auckland auction rooms on December 5 with a wide range of other commercial and industrial properties as part of Bayleys' Total Property portfolio.

The Honey Centre lease will produce initial net annual rental income of $140,000 per annum, with a 12-year term from December 14, 2012 and with three five-year rights of renewal. The property, about 3km south of Warkworth and 40 minutes' drive north of Auckland, has 860sq m of buildings, including a 390sq m fully certified factory and warehousing facility for producing and storing a wide range of honey and honey-related products. A significant proportion is exported.

The complex includes a 280sq m retail centre and cafe, and a 190sq m conference facility for hosting visiting schools and tour groups. A large car parking area accessed off Perry Rd caters for the substantial number of cars and buses that visit the property.

"The Honey Centre is an internationally known and popular visitor attraction that draws locals and tourists alike and has developed many strands to its business," Ashton says. "It also benefits from the property's huge exposure to State Highway One which gives it instant brand profile to the thousands of cars that travel by each day and generates significant drop-in business."

The Honey Centre was started in a small building 20 years ago with the aim of providing a local tourist attraction suitable for families. As the business grew in size, the premises were expanded and Honey Cafe and the Honey Mead and Fruit Wine Shop were added. The centre, which is open every day of the year apart from Christmas Day, also has a large display of live bees, and a wide range of honeys are available for tasting and purchase.

Honey-related health care and skin care products, ointments and giftware are on sale.

A substantial pond next to the car park was added in 2002. "This was developed to enhance the recreational appeal of the property," Ashton says. "Along with the mature trees that surround the Honey Centre providing considerable shelter, the pond makes for a very attractive setting for the business to operate from. There is also a good bore on the property which provides a plentiful supply of water."

He says the current owner of the property and Honey Centre wants to further develop and improve the business.

Funds generated from the property sale will be reinvested to this end and to enhance the long-term occupation of the site with a very long lease and rights of renewal running through until 2039.

Ashton says the size of the landholding means there is plenty of scope for further development. There is a large, elevated area of land behind the Honey Centre, used for grazing cattle, which would make a good house site and the vendor also owns an adjoining property of about seven hectares which could be part of the sale package as well if the purchaser wanted an even larger site.

Barnett says there is good demand for commercial and industrial property in and around Warkworth with considerable development being undertaken to service an expanding population in the township and surrounding areas and there are few vacancies in the commercial sector.

He says the Honey Centre is in an area which is popular with lifestyle property owners because it is close to the motorway and Warkworth.