US investment giant Invesco has sold out of Forestway shopping centre in the northern Sydney suburb of Frenchs Forest to private platform Revelop in a $100 million deal.
The sale crystallises a capital loss of -$12m on Invesco’s acquisition of the asset in 2015 when it acquired the property from GPT Wholesale for $112m.
Invesco were reported to have written back the value of the asset below the sale price.
Forestway has close to 10,000sqm of retail and office space, anchored Woolworths and Aldi malls, along with numerous specialty stores.
In 2018, Invesco had sought approval to double the size of the Centre to 21,000sqm, however the plans faced significant opposite from local and state authorities.
The DA involves a major refurbishment and increase in commercial floor space of the existing Forest Way Shopping Centre and includes two basement levels of parking, an additional roof-top parking level, and two floors of commercial floor space. The proposal includes supermarkets, childcare centre, a “skypark”, health centre, gym, restaurants, and specialty retail shops.
The application was amended a number of times, primarily to obtain approval from Transport for NSW which was ultimately granted but resulted in their being no exit from the site directly onto Forest Way, no right turns into the site from Forest Way, banning any right turns out of Russel Avenue onto Forest Way and the dedication of land from the Forest Way frontage for use as a deceleration lane to enter the site, and a future bus lane on Forest Way.
Those amendments pushed all the exiting traffic to Russel Avenue or Grace Avenue to the west. Whilst many of the planning matters were dealt with the development was excessive within the guidelines of the then LEP and ultimately refused by the Northern Beaches Planning Panel.
According to the AFR, Revelop’s immediate plans are to improve the parking, appearance and tenancy mix at the mall.
A new Structure Plan for the precinct may provide Revelop and opportunity to revisit the future development plans for the Centre.
“Once the plans are finalised, we will commence a staged delivery focusing on expansion and improvements of our current tenants, introduction of new tenants to improve the mix and experience and look to the larger scale improvements,” Mr Hazzouri told the AFR.
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