The corner property for sale at 1 Gloucester St, Greenmeadows, Napier.
Changing preferences in the way New Zealanders watch movies at home and the growing needs of the children's fancy dress and dance costume business have resulted in a prominent Napier commercial building placed on the market for sale.
"The two tenancies at 1 Gloucester Street reflect vastly different trading times for their respective operators," says Sam MacDonald from Bayleys Napier, who with colleague Daniel Moffitt, is marketing the building for sale by negotiation with a deadline of August 21.
The well-known two storey building on the corner of Gloucester St and Auckland Rd in Greenmeadows is currently occupied by Video Ezy leasing 297 sq m of space and PW Dancewear renting the remaining 253 sq m.
The 550 sq m building sits on about 850 sq m of land sharing a boundary with the New World Greenmeadows supermarket and is immediately over the road from the large recreational area comprising Anderson Park.
"Video Ezy, as with most DVD rental outlets, has been finding trading increasingly harder as greater numbers of New Zealanders move away from hiring out DVDs on a nightly basis, to watching films through legal downloading providers such as Lightbox, Quickflix, and Netflix," MacDonald says.
"At the other end of the spectrum, PW Dancewear is a business which is at the bow-wave of global retailing - downsizing its physical presence to a high count pedestrian CBD location, while simultaneously upscaling its online offering to service a wider audience.
"As a result, the building has been placed on the market for sale with the initial target buyer market identified as owner occupiers seeking a retail presence on a big volume traffic route."
The property in its current configuration has 10 off street car parks, with additional street parking on both Gloucester St and Auckland Rd.
Moffitt says Video Ezy is on a month to month lease paying $42,744 per annum and PW Dancewear would consider signing a 12 month lease while it secured new premises to move to.
"For potential buyers looking at redevelopment or owner occupier scenarios, these two rental steams would underpin holding income while appropriate redevelopment plans were drawn up and council consenting approvals were sought. Or for future owner occupiers this would allow them to establish a long-term time frame in which to relocate their business."
MacDonald says immediate access to car parking on site along with two road frontages make the venue suitable to conversion to a licensed cafe styled hospitality business.
"With Anderson Park being close by, a converted cafe would be an excellent R&R destination after bike riding, taking the dog for a walk, or watching the kids on the swings and slides in the playground," he says
"The retail centre of Taradale is about 1.5 kilometres away, so a new neighbourhood café here would have a virtually unrivalled trade catchment area. There is no other real local alternative for grabbing a barista-made flat white and a plate of eggs benedict.
"There's a pie 'n' cake bakery down the road and a small cafe within the New World premises but that outlet is more an adjunct to shopping rather than a hospitality destination location in its own right."
Moffitt says the freehold building could also be converted into a multi-practitioner medical centre to service the surrounding residential population.
"We've had feedback from developers who have looked over the building who say the existing envelope could be reconfigured to house a main reception, administrative services supplies storage room and bathroom amenities, along with four to six consultation suites on the ground floor, and two additional practitioners' rooms upstairs," he says.
"The potential uses for this building are broad, so it's a real 'mystery bag' of opportunities. The big selling point obviously is its high profile corner location on a high volume intersection. We've even had some interest from a 24/7 gym operator. Under that dynamic, the upstairs area could be sub-leased to a physiotherapy studio as they tend to work hand in hand with physical fitness centres.
"It has been mooted that, subject to the granting of council consent, the installation of billboard signage on the building's apex and along the Gloucester Street frontage would bring on a totally new revenue stream," says Moffitt.