Land deal sets up 277 expansion

By Bob Dey

277 Broadway's Asian owners have bought the Levene Extreme site across Mortimer Pass, taking their holdings for expansion of the shopping centre to 1.8ha.

Auckland One, an overseas Chinese company controlled by Denis Jen, now holds more than 2.5ha of prime Newmarket land.

It has redevelopment plans for the whole site - which at present includes all but two small premises down Mortimer Pass at the back of the 277 parking on one block, and now the Extreme property.

The price for the latest transaction has not been disclosed, but at $1200 for Broadway frontage and nothing for the Extreme buildings, it would exceed $14.3 million.

277's owners need to act to maintain the supremacy of their shopping centre against increased opposition at their end of Broadway once Tramco goes ahead with the plans it is formulating for the Mercury Energy site, which is also intended to become retail space.

The 277 shopping centre and small office block were built in the late 1980s by Mace, then a Lion Nathan company, with Woolworths, also in the Lion Nathan portfolio, as anchor tenant.

Woolworths has since been bought by Dairy Farm International, part of the Jardine Matheson empire based in Hong Kong, and Jen bought the property in 1992 for about $50 million.

He has since extended Auckland One's land ownership in Newmarket to Gillies Ave, taking in shops behind 277 along Morrow St and across to Mortimer Pass.

The latest acquisition takes Auckland One's holdings across Mortimer Pass to Clovernook Rd, with entry along Coventry Lane to the Extreme on Broadway property which was developed by paint and wallpaper retailer Levene's and retained in Levene family ownership when David Levene sold his business to Skellerup.

David Levene managed to maintain a good income stream after Skellerup collapsed and the Levene's business was closed, installing FarmersHome as an anchor tenant.

Jen is shown on company documents as being resident in both Singapore and Hong Kong, and his partners include Taiwanese interests.

They also own shopping centres in Australia and their New Zealand business is managed from Brisbane.