Scentre numbers, hotel in new 41-level tower hits market, hotel owner vs body corporate and how’s the Richwhite bach sale going? All in today’s column.
New Zealand’s biggest shopping centre owner pushed up annual revenue generated in this country from $164.2 million to $172.4m in the latest year.
ASX-listed Scentre Group reported its full-year result for the year to December 31, 2024, citing an Australasian A$4b ($4.4b) future development opportunity pipeline, which continues to feature Albany on Auckland’s North Shore.
Much of the money generated from New Zealand comes from rent: in this country, the Westfield-branded mall landlord made total property revenue of $141.6m, up from the previous $138.2m. Property management revenue rose from $6.7m to $6.9m, according to accounts.
Scentre gets 526 million customers through its doors annually, up 14 million annually; owning 42 Australasia malls, with close to 20 million people. These are some of the outstanding numbers in the latest investor presentation.
Throughout Australia and New Zealand, the company made funds from operations of A$1.13b, up 3.5% on 2023. Distributions for the period are A$893m, up 3.8%.
Statutory profit for the period was A$1.05b.
In New Zealand, the company owns 51% of five malls with Singapore’s GIC. Those Kiwi malls are on 54ha of land. Four out of five are in Auckland.
“Our New Zealand destinations are in close proximity to 2.2 million people,” Scentre said, citing 43.5 million customer visits in the 2024 year to Westfield Albany, Manukau, Newmarket, Riccarton, and St Lukes.
Throughout Australasia, total annual sales were A$29b, up from 2023’s A$28.4b.
Newmarket is Scentre’s largest New Zealand mall at 86,879sq m, about 4km from the CBD and catering to a trade area population over 530,000 residents. That mall has 3045 car parks and made $662.5m total annual retail sales in the 2024 year.
A $790m redevelopment, completed in 2019, has seen this destination set a new benchmark as a world-class retail and lifestyle destination for New Zealanders, Scentre said.
The 4.5ha Westfield Newmarket is home to David Jones, Farmers, Countdown, and about 219 speciality stores.
In 2021, Westfield Newmarket introduced seven new international luxury brands including Louis Vuitton, Moncler, Saint Laurent, Balenciaga, Golden Goose and Mulberry.
The mall at 277 Broadway now has a valuation of $1.07b of which Scentre’s share is $548.5m. It got 12.7 million customer visits last year, down on the 13 million in 2023.
Chairwoman Ilana Atlas, told the Herald in December that Scentre was in the business of creating experiences that ultimately encourage shoppers to spend.
“We want it to be an appealing place to come and stay. I mean you may not even spend anything,” she said.
Whillans Realty Group’s Brice Clark and McVay Real Estate’s Sam McVay are selling Hotel Indigo Auckland, the new 225-room hotel managed by Intercontinental Hotel Group with apartments above.
The hotel opened in December with rooms from 22 to 29sq m and rates from around $300 a night.
The hotel is in the 41-level tower and offers are due by April 3. Property records show Nff New Zealand Pty owns the properties where the tower has been developed.
Dean Rzechta, managing director of building owner and developer Ninety-Four Feet of Australia, said he would defer to Clark for any comments about the sale.
But he did say of the 30 apartments above the hotel which were developed, only six remain for sale.
The sale includes three food and beverage offerings, a gym and 76 car parks with what the agents refer to as “protected and exceptional panoramic views”.
Last year, Rzechta took the Herald on a tour of the new tower with Icon NZ director Dan Bosher and hotel general manager Matt Simister.
Australian-headquartered construction specialist Icon has built the hotel and apartment tower above the Macdonald Halligan Motors building, the design paying homage to the original business, whose building was designed by architect F Earnest Smith in 1912 but not built until 1918.
Australian architect Scott Carver designed the building and did the interior design.
A plant room is on level 28, then it’s apartments from levels 29-41.
Rzechta said Ninety-Four Feet owned the building but acknowledged the market was “challenging”.
He engaged Graham Wall to sell the level-41 penthouse for $18m-$20m, although the price would ultimately be decided by the market, Rzechta said last year. The penthouse was previously to be two levels and go for around $26m, but Rzechta said there was less of a market for an offering like that these days.
A dispute between apartment and hotel room owners at a Tutukākā property resulted in the hotel business being ordered to compensate the apartment owners for plumbing and lift servicing bills.
The Tenancy Tribunal has ruled in the dispute between Ngātiwai Holdings and Body Corporate 349622.
Ngātiwai was ordered to pay the body corporate $35,000 for plumbing and lift servicing and a further $17,000 in legal fees after losing the case.
The fight was over bills at the property at 11 Marina Rd with the units a mix of private residential apartments, commercial units, and other facilities.
Ngātiwai Holdings is an amalgamation of Ngātiwai Fishing and Ngātiwai Investment Holdings. It owns the hotel at the Oceans Resort which trades as Quality Hotel Oceans Tutukākā, the tribunal said.
The development is 11 shops, a 28-room hotel, 38 apartments, a swimming pool, secure owner/residents’ parking, additional parking areas, and surrounding gardens. NHL owns all the units that comprise the hotel.
In 2019 the body corporate contracted Northland Plumbing to replace fittings for the water system that serves the NHL units including the hotel rooms.
Northland Plumbing invoiced the body corporate for $14,202.50.
NHL has refused to pay the cost of the work yet the body corporate considers that NHL received a substantial benefit from the repairs.
There was also a dispute over lift servicing.
“Simply put, the issue before the tribunal is this: who should pay for the cost of maintenance to the hotel service lift and the plumbing repairs carried out to the hotel – all the unit owners in proportion to their utility interest, or NHL because the hotel it owns and operates as a business obtained a substantial benefit from the repairs?” wrote the tribunal’s J Greene in an October 24 decision.
Because the body corporate considered that the work to the hotel lift benefited the hotel units substantially more than the owners of the other units, it charged half of the cost of maintenance work to NHL. The amount that related to the hotel lift solely was $10,370.
The body corporate submitted that NHL was responsible for the cost of maintenance of the hotel service lift and the cost of plumbing repairs because it obtained a substantial benefit from the work that was carried out.
NHL submitted that all the costs of the maintenance of the service lift and the plumbing repair work should be paid by all the unit owners proportional to their ownership/utility interest.
The tribunal decided the body corporate correctly invoiced NHL for the costs incurred for the plumbing repairs and the lift.
A subsequent January 15 decision on costs said NHL must pay a further $17,000, even though the body corporate wanted $25,000 because it said that was the actual legal costs incurred in it recovering levies for the work.
The Richwhite family’s traditional Waihāha bach on Lake Taupō is still being advertised for sale via Bayleys.
Last March, the Herald reported advertising with photos showing a rustic-style home surrounded by bush on the shore of the lake looking towards the volcanic plateau.
“Accessible primarily by boat or helicopter”, wrote Bayley’s local agent Alison Whittle of the property, which is called Tihoi. It is owned by a company directed by three Richwhite family members.
A YouTube video titled The paradise that time forgot with drone footage of the place has got 1400 views so far.
A CoreLogic report says the Waihāha Rd property has a 180sq m dwelling built in 1955, and a total capital value of $1.1m: $810,000 for land and $345,000 for buildings.
Anne Gibson has been the Herald’s property editor for 25 years, written books and covered property extensively here and overseas.
This recovery is making us sweat, but that might be a good thing in the long run.