Best & Less to sell Leichhardt head office for $25m
An office and warehouse complex in the inner west owned by national retailer Best & Less could soon be turned into a large-scale apartment development.
The retail giant has put its long-term headquarters on Parramatta Rd in Leichhardt on the market with expectations that it could sell for more than $25 million.
The mammoth 6265sqm site is being offered with a sale-and-leaseback agreement to Best & Less for a minimum of three years.
Under the deal, Best & Less will pay an annual net rent of $1.3 million to the buyer to continue to use the site as its national headquarters.
The 6265sqm landholding has been owned by Best & Less since 1997.
Owned by the Value Retail Group, Best & Less have enlisted Colliers International’s James Cowan and Matthew Meynell to market the property as an expressions of interest campaign until the start of March.
The pair plan hope to attract a variety of buyers from Sydney, interstate and overseas to the site that is one of the largest landholdings in the area to come up for sale in recent times.
This comes as surrounding area has been a hotbed of apartment development in recent years. Best & Less is believed to have knocked back a number of off-market offers in the past to buy the site from developers.
The modern office complex has a 5 Star NABERS rating.
Expected to be rezoned as B4 mixed use with a 2:4:1 floor-space ratio, the future buyer would have the potential to construct apartment towers up to 21m high on the landholding.
Similar size developments behind the Best & Less site on George St have yielded a combined 386 apartments between Oasis Leichhardt and Leichhardt Green sites.
The retailer with 194 stores across Australia has based its operations out of Leichhardt since acquiring 657-673 Parramatta Rd in 1998 for $4.5 million, according to CoreLogic.
A car park for 63 cars is part of the complex.
Under their ownership the company has subsequently added surrounding blocks to its land parcel. The listed site renovated commercial office, two warehouses and an outdoor car park for 65 cars now spans two sides of Upward St.
This article from The Daily Telegraph originally appeared as “Australian retailer Best & Less to offload Leichhardt head office for more than $25 million”.
