Woolies to build $100m produce facility in Laverton
Property group Charter Hall and retailer Woolworths have struck up a partnership to develop a $100 million-plus major produce facility for the supermarket giant in the western Melbourne suburb of Laverton.
The new 32,600sqm property will be adjacent to the existing Woolworths MeatCo in Charter Hall’s busy Drystone Estate.
The area occupied by Woolworths will now include both the MeatCo facility and the new temperature-controlled logistics centre.
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The Woolworths fresh distribution centre will sit on a 9.6ha site and service Woolworths supermarkets across Victoria.
The Charter Hall-managed wholesale fund CLP owns the $400 million Drystone Estate in the heart of Laverton.
The 75ha estate already accommodates facilities for Target, Reject Shop, Couriers Please, Rand and Laverton Cold Storage.
Charter Hall chief executive David Harrison says the group’s vision for the estate will be “further realised” by the additional Woolworths facility.
“On completion, Drystone will comprise a modern estate anchored by high-quality customers such as Woolworths, representing the premier asset within the CLP portfolio,” he says.
Charter Hall has significant land banks across Australia, primarily along the eastern seaboard, that have the capacity to deliver close to one million sq/m of new logistics facilities.
These land banks are in core infrastructure hubs, zoned and ready to develop to take advantage of favourable market conditions.
CLP fund manager Simon Greig says the new facility in the Drystone Estate will add a third Woolworths leased asset to the portfolio and extend its weighted average lease expiry beyond ten years.
“Our cross-sector relationships provide a clear scale advantage and I think the market underestimates our major cross-sector tenant customer relationships which is represented by $22.5 billion of funds across industrial, office and retail sectors.” Harrison says.
This article originally appeared on www.theaustralian.com.au/property.
