Industrial Property Investors Set To Plough Funds Into Agricultural Engineering Site Up For Sale

The land and buildings housing a long-standing farm equipment and machinery engineering plant in the heart of the North Island’s premier dairying region has been placed on the market for sale.

The premises at 5855 State Highway 2 in Netherton features a 620 square metre industrial building complex sitting on a 1.89-hectare block of land zoned rural 1A under the Hauraki District Council plan.

The property has been the headquarters of Quinn Engineering since the 1960s – with the company producing hay-bailing machinery, crate-lifting forklift extensions, and tractor extensions for crop and soil management. Its products are sold throughout New Zealand as well as Australia and the South Pacific.

The engineering buildings consist of a rectangular high-stud warehouse with a handful of five metre sliding door entrances and staff amenities on a mezzanine floor, several smaller separate workshops, and adjoining administrative offices.

With business ‘booming’ and orders for new equipment flowing in every week, Quinn Engineering is moving to new and bigger purpose-built premises at the burgeoning Kerepehi Industrial Park.

Soon to be vacant when Quinn Engineering relocates, the Netherton building and land is being marketed for sale at auction on March 12 through Bayleys Hamilton. Salesperson Josh Smith said the site would lend itself to multiple future uses, depending on the motivations of any new owner.

“The expanse of industrial warehousing floorspace makes the main building within the complex eminently suitable for conversion into a tradie’s depot for the likes of a builder, plumber or drainage contracting firm. The positioning of the doors means the interior could even be subdivided for a shared multi-occupancy facility,” Mr Smith said.

“Likewise, with the ancillary smaller sheds and covered canopy-covered space – which have the potential to be let as individual storage units or assigned to tenants within the bigger facility as secondary space.”

The industrial buildings and offices are located on one corner portion of the greater Netherton landholding – with a small dwelling on the other corner let out on a month-to-month rental arrangement. The middle portion of the flat site is undeveloped field space.

“Subject to acquiring the appropriate regulatory consents, the middle portion of the 1.89- hectare site could easily be developed into a heavy vehicle yard with adjoining workshops for supporting the likes of road-building and maintenance firms, or for the parking of earthmoving and civil landscaping machinery,” Mr Smith said.

Mr Smith said there was also the possibility that the entire plant could be purchased to accommodate a motor vehicle enthusiast’s private collection of cars, motorbikes or boats.

“There are a lot of motor-racing enthusiasts living in the region – with stock car tracks in Huntly, Tauranga’s Bay Park and Waikaraka Park in Auckland offering a combined racing schedule virtually every weekend in the season. Then of course there’s Hampton Downs for the open-wheel and marque drivers,” Mr Smith said.

“A workshop facility like this in Netherton would allow a driver and his support team to have easy access to all three of the dirt tracks, and conduct maintenance and repairs throughout the week with minimal disturbance to neighbours.

“The warehousing space could also accommodate a private collector’s accumulation of cars, bikes, and even big boys’ toys like motor-boats, and jet skis, with the potential of converting the office space into a ‘man-cave’ of epic proportions. With flat topography, it would be a straightforward exercise to install security fencing around the perimeter of the warehousing area.”

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