Coles sells Whiteman Edge Village WA

JLL is pleased to announce the sale & settlement of Whiteman Edge Village and adjacent development site on behalf of Coles Group Property Developments. The sale demonstrates the continued demand nationally for high-quality Coles supermarket anchored neighbourhood shopping centres.

JLL’s Sean Flynn, Nigel Freshwater and Sam Hatcher were the appointed exclusive selling agents and completed the sale of Whiteman Edge Village, achieving a figure of $39.067million which after adjustment for the adjacent development site reflected an annualised initial yield for the fully leased centre of 5.99%, and an improved rate of approximately $5,753/sqm of GLAR.

Opened in June 2021, Whiteman Edge Village is a thriving 6,170sqm neighbourhood centre anchored by a strong performing Coles supermarket and Liquorland supported by a diverse mix of 10 specialty retailers including medical centre, pharmacy and a large freestanding Nido childcare centre. The centre provides 302 at-grade car bays and occupies a combined 3.6812ha site with significant future expansion potential.

JLL Senior Director, Capital Markets Transactions Mr Flynn said: “The heavily contested public expression of interest campaign produced over 150 enquiries and 9 formal bids. The strong interest in the Centre is reflective of the continued support for new Coles anchored centres with limited exposure to discretionary retail. In our view Whiteman Edge Village offered the perfect combination of anchor tenant covenant, specialty retailer mix, trading performance, catchment growth profile and value-add opportunity, so we weren’t at all surprised by the response from the market.”

JLL Senior Director, Capital Markets Transactions Mr Freshwater said “Opportunities of this quality rarely come to market in WA. This scarcity factor coupled with the inevitable strong interest for Coles-anchored metropolitan neighbourhood centres generated a highly competitive process. Ultimately, the sale of Whiteman Edge Village represents the largest and tightest yielding neighbourhood shopping centre transaction to occur in Western Australia in 2½ years and comes off the back of our sale of Australian Unity’s Woodvale Boulevard for $36.5million in September, further illustrating the strong appetite for this asset class in Western Australia.”

JLL Executive Director, Head of Retail Investments Mr Hatcher said: “We were very pleased to have achieved this strong result on behalf of Coles Group Property Developments, and completing the transaction so swiftly in December following the expression of interest close in late October was certainly refreshing and somewhat against the trend for 2023. Whist overall transaction volumes were down on previous years as a result of the challenging financial environment, JLL’s national retail sales performance was strong with 47 transactions at a combined value of circa $3.16billion. As the market settles into 2024, the projected trajectory of interest rates is now downward, so we’re expecting plenty of activity in the coming year.”