Iwi headquarters and medical centre complex for sale

The land and building housing a prominent town centre commercial and retail shopping complex – encompassing the administrative offices of a regional iwi asset management trust and iwi-associated healthcare services provider – have been placed on the market for sale.

Palmer Court is one of the biggest single retail and commercial blocks in the Bay of Plenty township of Te Puke - with frontages onto Jellicoe Street, Palmer Place and Commerce Lane. The 1,790 square metre two-storey retail and office block is built on 1,452 square metre of freehold land.

On the first floor of Palmer Court are the administrative headquarters of Tapuika Iwi Authority - the entity entrusted with managing the Treaty of Waitangi settlement assets allocated to the Tapuika tribe along the Eastern Bay of Plenty coastline. The authority leases some 144 square metres of space.

Meanwhile, underneath the Tapuika Iwi Authority is the Waitaha Health Centre, a medical centre operated by Te Manu Toroa Trust - which was established in 1997 to provide easily accessible and affordable healthcare services to Māori in the Tauranga and Te Puke areas. The Te Manu Toroa Trust has occupied the site since 2004 – leasing some 140 square metres of space.

Other tenants within the Palmer Court complex include a women’s fashion outlet, a fish and chip shop, a tattoo studio, a hair salon, a beauty therapy and health spa, one of Te Puke’s most popular Indian restaurants, and the Bay of Plenty branch offices of major horticultural operations and technical services advisory firm Fruition Horticulture.

In total, the high-profile largely rectangular-shaped block consists of 10 shops and two office suites with the leased premises within the complex ranging in size from 40 square metres up to 144 square metres. The property is zoned for commercial use under the Western Bay of Plenty District plan.

The freehold land and building at 42 – 46 Jellicoe Street in Te Puke have been placed on the market for sale by tender through Bayleys Tauranga, with the tender process closing on June 11.

Salespeople Brendon Bradley, Lynn Bradley, and Ryan Bradley said the ground floor accommodation comprised three tenancies with frontage to Jellicoe Street, four tenancies with frontage to Palmer Place, a small tenancy with frontage to Commerce Lane and two tenancies within the arcade.

Brendon Bradley said access to the first floor was up a stairwell from the Palmer Place frontage, while a rear stairwell lead to the arcade and car park. He said the office spaces were fully partitioned as two separate suites.

“A veranda is cantilevered over the footpath to all street frontages providing pedestrian cover. Part of the arcade is contained under the main roof structure and part has glazed roofing. Steel gates are provided at both ends of the arcade,” Mr Bradley said.

At the rear of the property is approximately 280sqm of hot mix yard space, which provides seven off street carparks. Lynn Bradley said that the combined tenancies within Palmer Court generated annual net income of $171,296.

“However there is an immediate opportunity to increase rental returns as the property has a vacant 94 square metre office space, which based on average square metre rates across the tenancy schedule, has been calculated to generate approximately $14,100 per annum when leased. That would take Palmer Court’s annual net rental income of $185,397 plus GST,” Lynn Bradley said.

“Several of the long-established tenancies within Palmer Court have occupied their premises for more some 18years and have survived such trying economic events as the global financial crisis and the PSA kiwifruit outbreak.”

Ryan Bradley said the property’s geographic location on Te Puke’s main street where most of the town’s retail activity was conducted, combined with the broad tenancy schedule, made the building an attractive opportunity for either owner-occupiers looking for office space in the town’s central business district, or for an investor seeking cash-flow.

He said that as the "Kiwifruit Capital of the World" and the horticultural hub of the eastern Bay of Plenty region, Te Puke was a thriving rural service town that was a major centre for New Zealand’s booming billion dollar kiwifruit industry.

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