One of the largest privately-held marine land holdings in the Auckland central business district has been placed on the market through CBRE.
Known as Pier 21, the prime 1.2 hectare block in Wynyard Quarter has been held in family ownership for the past 25 years. It is being marketed for sale by John Holmes, Brent McGregor and Mark Maginness of CBRE, for sale by expressions of interest closing on Thursday July 22 at 4pm.
The property, which is primarily a mixed-use marine centre, comprises offices, warehousing, marine retail, a dry stack boat storage facility (the first to be constructed in the Southern Hemisphere), hardstand yard space and a marina.
A significant number of tenants including boat service providers and office & retail businesses occupy the site, as well as Peter Gordon’s Homeland restaurant and cooking school.
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As one of only three covered dry stack boat storage facilities in greater Auckland, the property holds strong scarcity value, says Holmes.
“There is currently limited vacancy in covered dry stack facilities in Auckland and marina berths are also in high demand as boat ownership rates increase. Construction of further dry stack facilities is difficult as a consequence of low availability of suitably-zoned and located land, along with the costs of construction providing substantial barriers to development of such facilities.”
Marina berth supply has also seen minimal growth, with future supply constrained and demand consistently high, especially in central Auckland, McGregor says.
“The difficulty of developing new marina facilities has been illustrated recently by the legal battles surrounding the Kennedy Point marina on Waiheke Island. Westhaven Marina, which is located adjacent to Pier 21 and represents 30% of the Auckland berthing market, is consistently full and operates a waiting list.”
Sales of trailer boats have also exhibited strong and sustained growth, with a 6% compound average growth rate in trailer boat registrations over the past five years, according to Waka Kotahi registration statistics, says Maginness.
“With constrained future supply and strong forecast demand for berthing space, Pier 21’s operational performance and value are ideally positioned to benefit from these trends.”
Pier 21 offers its new owner significant diversity of income across multiple sectors including boat storage, office, marine based trade, signage and hospitality.
The office tenants occupy a four-level office building known as the Pier 21 building. Originally constructed in the 1980s, it provides uninterrupted views across the harbour.
Its 4,325sq m of net lettable floor space is occupied by several tenants including JCDecaux, Radiant Health, Gulf Group Marine Brokers, Zoom Health, Xelocity and the Northern Pathway JV. Homeland restaurant, bar and cooking school occupies the ground floor hospitality space. The building also has 61 basement car parks and a further 59 on-grade car parks.
The two-level Baileys Building, constructed in the 1900s provides 1,244sqm of predominantly retail accommodation, with associated offices. Tenants include Global Dive, Southern Spars, Windcraft, Ownaship, Johnny Wray café, 36 Degree Brokers and World Power.
The dry stack facility was purpose built for storing, launching and retrieving boats up to 9.3 metres in length and provides 187 dry berths. The marina has 68 wet berths, 22 of which are used for the operation of the dry stack facility. The marina and part of the dry stack facility occupy a 9,628sqm waterspace licence, which has a 35-year term extending to 2055.
3,000sq m of hardstand yard space and the Seagars warehouse, primarily used for boat storage and repairs, make up the remainder of the property. Two large billboards facing the motorway complete the tenant list.
Located between Wynyard Quarter and Westhaven, the property is a strategic location for marine-related businesses, says Holmes.
“The property has an extensive street frontage of over 200 metres, as well as excellent exposure to the motorway and three street access points providing ease of access.”
Current zoning permits significantly greater site coverage than the current building footprints, making future development on the yard space a value-add possibility, McGregor says.
“This property is being released to the market at a time when the surrounding area is being transformed with extensive redevelopment, with Wynyard Quarter set to become one of New Zealand’s largest urban regeneration projects.”
Development at Wynyard Quarter is expected to continue for another 20 years and the precinct will eventually be home to about 3000 residents and 25,000 workers, Maginness adds.
