Landmark Napier restaurant site for sale

The land and building that housed a landmark pizza shop in Napier’s central business district has been placed on the market for sale.

For almost 30-years, the property at 16 Carlyle Street on the intersection with Tennyson Street was home to Antonio’s pizza parlour – making it one of the longest continually-run food and beverage operations in the city.

Originally constructed in the 1960s as a corner superette dairy known as ‘the people’s store’ and then tenanted by Antonio’s since 1990, the now-vacant 220- square metre two-storey building sits on some 190-square metres of freehold land.

Above the retail ground-floor space is a two-bedroom apartment. The property at 16 Carlyle Street is now being marketed for sale at auction on December 6 through Bayleys Napier. Salesperson Mark Evans said the building had a 6.2-metre street frontage onto Carlyle Street, and an 18.3-metre frontage onto Tennyson Street.

Neighbouring properties include Countdown supermarket, Domino’s and Pizza Hutt, St Pierre’s Sushi, while Carlyle Street is the hub for Napier’s car dealerships – under such marques as Mercedes, Honda, Toyota, Subaru, Hyundai, Land Rover and Jaguar

“The current ground-floor retail layout of 16 Carlyle Street comprises an open-plan restaurant and kitchen area – with food preparation space, storeroom, office, and staff toilet totaling 122.5 square metres,” Mr Evans said.

“There is also off-street car park running off the Tennyson Street portion of the property. Upstairs, and accessed by an external stairwell running up from the storage courtyard at the rear of the building, is the 75-square metre two-bedroom apartment.

“The configuration of the residential and retail components within the property lends itself to either an owner/operator in the foodservice sector as procuring a dwelling for themselves, or for use as staff quarters.”

Mr Evans said the property had a market rental assessment of $46,166 per annum – encompassing both the restaurant potion of the building, and the residential component.

The largely-rectangular shaped property is zoned Fringe Commercial under the Napier City Council plan and a new building standards rating of 70 percent. The restaurant’s floor consists of polished concrete, while the walls are constructed of concrete block, and are capped off by trough section steel roof.

The fringe commercial zoning is a buffer belt which separates Napier’s central business district from the surrounding residential areas – allowing for a broad spectrum of commercial activities. The premises is being sold as a ‘blank canvas’ opportunity without any of the former kitchen or bar chattels - which have all been removed - included in the offering.

“With a combined average weekday traffic flow count of 10,000 vehicles passing the property either along either the Tennyson or Carlyle street frontages, there is huge potential for prominent branding and naming right signage to enhance public awareness of any tenancy operating within the premises,” Mr Evans said.

“For a future hospitality or food and beverage owner-occupier tenant, there is also the opportunity, subject to council consent, to remodel the building’s structural design with the installation of bay-windows and upgrading the open-air dining space – perhaps to even expand into the area currently utilised for car parking.”

Mr Evans said there was the potential to increase the available foodservice floorplate by building an al-fresco drinking and dining area on the first-storey above the existing ground-level restaurant portion.

“Alternatively, the building could be converted into purely commercial usage – either as an office premises for the likes of a professional services firm of consultancy, or as a retail site,” Mr Evans said.