Whanganui coolstore up for sale as demand grows

The Gilberd St cool storage depot

Cool storage depots are in hot demand and a 6000 square metre building in Whanganui is for sale.

The coolstore facility at 1 Gilberd St is in the heart of Whanganui's industrial area and is on 1.7 hectares of land, some of which is free for development.

It is leased to Wanganui Cold Storage, which has a 15-year lease, expiring in April 2023, with two 15-year rights of renewal.

Generating a net annual rental income of $457,000, the site has benefited from a considerable investment in the past two years to upgrade and improve operations, sales agent Chris Bayley says. These include:

●The installation of a CO2 plate freezing system.
●The refit of the main processing room.
● A plate freezer and line set up that has resulted in increased efficiency.

He said the facility was also well situated to take advantage of the proposed revamp of the Whanganui port area. "As overseas and domestic demand for New Zealand food increases, so too does the need for cold storage depots in regional centres and near major ports.

"Cold storage depots are a core sub-sector of the market, and investors are increasingly seeing them as a way to efficiently deploy more capital and grow the scale of their portfolios."

Because of the large volumes of food produce that required controlled temperature storage, New Zealand had a high reliance on refrigeration and cold storage, Mr Bayley said.

The huge demand for fresh food from the big supermarket chains and home delivery services added to the attractiveness of refrigerated logistics and distribution investments, as would the positive market forecasts for New Zealand's primary industries.

The Gilberd St coolstore is for sale by tender with a deadline of April 20. It has a rateable value of $3.86 million, comprising $3.19 million for improvements and $670,000 for the land, which is zoned industrial.

It is expected to sell for in excess of $3.5 million.