Construction And Engineering Giant’s Regional Operations Premises Comes Up For Sale

The land and buildings housing the Christchurch branch of a global construction and infrastructure engineering services company have been placed on the market for sale.

The substantial property at 79 and 79A Hayton Road in the Christchurch suburb of Wigram is occupied by Rapid Metal Developments (RMD), and is one of the company’s three New Zealand branches – with the other two located in Auckland and Wellington.

Trading since the 1950s, Rapid Metal Developments supplies formwork, shoring and scaffold systems, and engineering solutions to the global construction and infrastructure industries. Outside of New Zealand, the RMD group of companies have operations in more than 20 countries – including the USA, Chile, South Africa, India, the UK, Spain, Saudi Arabia, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Indonesia, Japan, the United Kingdom, the Philippines, and the United Arab Emirates.

Its plant at Hayton Road is housed on part of 13,382 square metres of land held in two titles zoned industrial heavy under the Christchurch City Council plan. Wigram is one of Christchurch’s foremost industrial suburbs – with neighbouring businesses in and around the Hayton Road property including a multitude of construction industry operations and automotive repair workshops.

Wigram’s industrial heavy zoning allows for industrial-related activities - with their high levels of noise and heavy vehicle movements - to be conducted in the area, along with the storage and use of hazardous substances and products.

Occupying some 6,000 square metres of the site, Rapid Metal Developments is on a current lease at the Hayton Road property running through to 2025 with a further two-year right of renewal – generating annual net income of $157,500. The current lease has annual rent increases of 1.5 percent for the duration of the initial term, with market rent reviews on renewal.

The majority of the remaining 7,500 square metres of yard space had been let to fuel delivery company Allied Petroleum as its tanker storage facility. Allied Petroleum had been paying net annual rental of $96,000, and will be vacating the site by the end of this year.

The freehold land and buildings at 79 and 79A Hayton Road are now being marketed for sale by private treaty through Bayleys Canterbury, with offers closing on November 26. Salespeople Nick O’Styke and Harry Peeters said the frontal portion of the L-shaped property was used to accommodate RMD’s administrative offices, a vehicle repairs and maintenance engineering workshop, and uncovered storage of concrete, steel and timber supplies.

The array of single-storey buildings on the flat topography site were constructed in 2015, and total some 420 square metres of workspace. Being of a relatively simply design and format, they have 100 percent new building standards ratings.

“From a long-term perspective, the Hayton Road site has multiple development options - with much of the block currently only utilised for Allied Petroleum’s tanker fleet parking. In addition, a substantial corner portion of the property is simply an unused brownfield section,” said O’Styke.

“Accordingly, there is easily enough land to sustain a substantial warehousing facility or factory plant which could operate with little or no impact on the activities of neighbouring tenant RMD.

“Wigram’s handy proximity to the east-to-west linking Christchurch Southern Motorway, State Highway 76, and the north-to-south connecting route of State Highways 73 and 75, have also been a primary reason why RMD has found the Hayton Road site convenient for its operations.”

The two-title site has two entry/exit points off Hayton Road and is encircled by security fencing. O’Styke said that with RMD’s various operational requirements for commercial offices, industrial factory floor space, and substantial yard space all on one site, the Hayton Road property was well capable of responding to the company’s future growth in the region.

Peeters said that with most of Wigram intensively built up with industrial buildings, and surrounding residential suburbs effectively ring-fencing any further outward expansion of the area, the substantial yard space at 79 and 79A Hayton Road was a land-banking opportunity underpinned by RMD’s tenancy revenues.

“For a potential owner/occupier buyer, there is the obvious opportunity to make better use of the currently bare brownfield portion of the property,” Peeters said.

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