- Developer Kurt Gibbons has sold the Herne Bay supermarket he built with rich-lister business partner Ben Cook.
- Agents declined to comment on the price, but the property was seen as high value, with news reports calling it a $50m supermarket.
- Gibbons is also selling his Herne Bay mansion, initially bought for $23.5m and renovated extensively.
Rich-lister developer Kurt Gibbons has sold the “$50 million” supermarket he built in Auckland’s most expensive suburb, OneRoof can reveal.
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Bayleys listing agent Damien Bullick, who marketed the Herne Bay Woolworths building with colleagues Alan Haydock and Ian Hall, told OneRoof he could not comment on the sale.
However, the agents have declared the property as sold on their listing. The sale price has not been published but the property had a 2021 RV of $25m.
Gibbons and his rich-lister business partner Ben Cook developed 1 Kelmarna Avenue together after spotting a gap in the market. They put the building up for sale in 2022, just months after it opened.
Inside the Herne Bay Woolworths. The property was completed by Gibbons and his business partner, Ben Cook, in 2022. Photo / Supplied
Property developer Kurt Gibbons built the supermarket after spotting a gap in the market. Photo / Fiona Goodall
The 1640sqm Metro supermarket, which sits on a 2342sqm site, was billed as a $50m property when it first opened under Woolworths’ Countdown brand. Woolworths was locked into a 12-year lease, with the listing agents highlighting a return of just over $1.6m a year plus GST.
Gibbons is also selling his multimillion-dollar Herne Bay mansion. The set sale date for the five-bedroom waterfront home at 27 Marine Parade was last Friday, but the listing is still live and unchanged on OneRoof.
OneRoof reached out to Gibbons and Bayleys listing agent Edward Pack for comment. They had not responded at the time of publication.
OneRoof got a tour of the home when it first hit the market in June last year. Gibbons and his wife, Makere, bought it more than four years ago for $23.5m and carried out a stunning renovation.
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The couple first had it listed with Wall Real Estate agent Graham Wall, who declared it would be “the highest value residential home ever sold in New Zealand”.
When Pack took on the listing in February he described the house as “beyond the extraordinary – one of New Zealand’s finest homes”.
The house is surprisingly modest on approach, with the money and luxury touches on full display inside.
When Gibbons bought the property, it needed work. They commissioned architects Fearon Hay to overhaul the house from top to bottom and to bring a five-star hotel vibe to the interiors.
Gibbons is also selling his waterfront Herne Bay mansion at 27 Marine Parade. Photo / Supplied
The house was given a complete makeover by architects Fearon Hay. Photo / Supplied
Gibbons declined to tell OneRoof the final cost of the build, which included earthworks on the cliff front to make a level surface for a tennis court, but admitted that it was “much, much more” than the $8m he had planned to spend.
“These [builds] cost a fortune. I’m in the industry and even I couldn’t stick to budget,” he said, adding, “It’s done up pretty good, eh?”
At 900sqm in size, the house is one of the biggest in upmarket Herne Bay but as stunning as it is, it’s one the Gibbons have never made their home.
The family relocated to Queenstown during the renovation and have stayed there. “The kids love it down there, my wife loves it, we don’t want to leave,” Gibbons told OneRoof in June last year.
Gibbons’ sale of 1 Kelmarna Avenue follows the recent sale of three more Woolworths supermarkets in Auckland.
The sales, which were unrelated to Gibbons’ deal, involved the Woolworths supermarkets in Te Atatū, Westgate and Mount Roskill.
Colliers director of capital markets Blair Peterken, who brokered the deals, said the properties sold to a private buyer. This week the New Zealand Herald reported that the Westgate and Mount Roskill deals were worth $20.2m and $25m respectively. The Te Atatū store has been sold to Foodstuffs North Island and will be turned into a New World supermarket.
Peterken said big-format retail buildings occupied by the likes of Woolworths and Bunnings were popular with investors.
“Obviously the tenant is fantastic – you can’t get better. We haven’t seen the cap compression yet on property values, so there’s a margin there,” he said.
Gibbons’ partner Cook off-loaded his Bunnings Westgate store, New Zealand’s largest, for $51m last year. Colliers’ Peterken, with Josh Coburn and Shoneet Chand brokered that deal.
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