The neighbouring building on the block's Marine Parade frontage, Norfolk House, is vacant.
"I don't know a lot about it - some kind of syndicate," Mr Alve said of the buyer.
The sale was handled by Colliers International's Auckland office.
Colliers Hawke's Bay director Cam Ward said there was strong interest in commercial Hawke's Bay property."
"We just sold a property in Onekawa for a flat 6 per cent yield. An out-of-town investor flew up and bought it cash unconditional in the first week of the campaign. That's a really sharp deal for Hawke's Bay."
He said any commercial/industrial property with good tenure was getting multiple offers.
The retail sector could be "a bit tough" but again if a tenancy was in place "the market still responds really strongly to it".
The market has proved to be not as buoyant as Taradale landowners hoped. Andrew Wiig said a move by Countdown to aggregate land for a new supermarket in Taradale failed.
"They made a fair offer, we accepted, and then they turned us down for whatever reason," he said.
The development, on Gloucester St south of Puketapu Rd, was unlikely to be resurrected because Mr Wiig has since bought a neighbouring building for an apartment development.
The Gloucester St building, home to a lawnmower shop and once the home of Appleton Pianos which has moved to Onekawa, was also under contract to sell.
"I have been working on it for two or three years with architects and planners. I was going to make an offer to buy the property next door and then the guy wanting to do Countdown beat me to it."
He said Taradale needed a supermarket which was why he was willing to sell his properties.
In February plans for a Countdown supermarket in nearby Greenmeadows, directly opposite the existing New World, was scrapped after the New World owner blocked the development by buying land in the middle of the proposed development.
