On the edge of St Patrick’s Square in the heart of the Auckland CBD, a prominent three-tower office campus on a corner site has emerged for sale for the first time in 16 years, offering a unique range of opportunities to add value or change use in a rapidly evolving part of the city.
The former headquarters of education provider Aspire2 International, Swanson Towers at 21-25 Federal Street is marketed exclusively by Brent McGregor and Warren Hutt of CBRE, for sale by deadline private treaty campaign closing on Wednesday 15 September at 4pm.
The freehold and predominantly vacant property occupies a highly desirable 1,724 sqm site on a single title in an extremely central part of the Auckland CBD, says Brent McGregor, CBRE NZ’s executive chairman.
“Location is key to the potential of this property. Swanson Towers offers investors a compelling value-add opportunity on one of the closest freehold redevelopment sites to Auckland’s waterfront. There are very few opportunities in this part of the city to secure a vacant building, a blank canvas that is ready to be taken forward exactly as you’d want it.
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“Situated next to the ANZ Centre, this is the part of the city where all the action is happening: close to Commercial Bay, the waterfront, the Viaduct and of course the route of the CRL. This location has significant momentum. Not only will two CRL stations be within a five-minute walk, at Britomart and the Aotea station on Albert Street, but many major redevelopments are also already underway nearby: a new Manson office asset on Albert Street, Auckland Real Estate’s redevelopment of the West Plaza building and its Fusion project at 87 Albert Street, plus two hotels being built by Icon with a combined 494 keys. Billions of development dollars are being poured into this area, creating a stellar opportunity to take advantage of surrounding momentum.”
Built in the 1970s and refurbished in the 1990s, the three towers were originally purpose-built as offices for the Ministry of Justice. The A-plus NBS-rated campus has been used over recent years as a language school.
The site’s current improvements of an 11-storey office building with two adjacent 7- and 3-storey towers have floorplates of between 270sq m to 320sq m in size. The property offers a total Net Lettable Area of 6165sq m, and all towers have good natural light, with the upper floors of the 11-storey tower enjoying views out onto the Viaduct.
Next to the cathedral of St. Patrick and St Joseph, and overlooking St. Patrick’s Square, the corner site enjoys a prominent position and street frontages to Hobson, Swanson and Federal Streets. The site allows multiple pedestrian access points from all street frontages plus basement parking for 38 cars, with access from Swanson Street.
Citing the site’s flexible City Centre zoning, Warren Hutt, senior director in CBRE’s Capital Markets, Institutional Investments team, says that a change of use would suit the property, and that a variety of proposals have included office redevelopment, education, and even a hotel.
“Swanson Towers offers enormous potential as a value-add refurbishment or conversion. It would suit a very broad range of uses, and we anticipate that many ideas will come out of the woodwork. Moreover, because there are three towers in the complex, the new owner could stage development work, tower by tower, even putting three different uses into them.
“Build-to-Rent (BTR) could also suit the towers; purpose-built, multi-unit residential rental housing designed for, and owned by, a single long-term investor and rented on a long-term basis. The numbers stack up for BTR in this highly desirable Downtown Auckland location as the CBD population and accompanying amenities grow around it.
“With such a formidable location in one of the closest freehold redevelopment sites to Auckland’s waterfront, investors will have the ability to target the leisure, corporate and even residential markets. Swanson Towers therefore offers a purchaser a strategic value-add opportunity in the heart of Auckland’s booming office precinct.”
- Article supplied by CBRE
