One of Newmarket’s best character buildings, which has been reconfigured from an iconic restaurant into four retail spaces with office space upstairs, is up for sale.
Previously owned and redeveloped in 2018–2019 by architect John Sofo of ASC Architects, 8 Kent Street spans two levels.
The ground floor once housed the Lone Star Restaurant and now accommodates Unison Workspaces, Kowtow, Yu Mei and Kajiken a global Japanese chain franchise restaurant.
The first floor is fully leased to Blunt Umbrellas for their head office.
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The property is returning a total net rental income of $494,701.
It is being offered for sale by tender with tenders closing on September 25.
Henry Thompson, of Whillans Realty Group, says the Kent Street property has been sympathetically renovated to include polished concrete floors, timber beams and exposed brickwork in keeping with its 1903 heritage as one of Auckland’s early industrial buildings.
The building was originally developed by the Lees family as part of the metalwork business they ran in the heart of Newmarket.
Thompson says it is now a trophy building. When it was refurbished, part of the facade was removed to create new shopfront windows and entranceways and the outside was replastered and repainted.
The retail units have generous stud heights with extended shop front glazing providing enhanced visibility and natural light.
The KowTow tenancy has a 3.2 metre stud height measured to the ceiling truss. The balance of the retail tenancies have stud heights between 4 and 5 metres, reducing to the rear of each tenancy.
Located on the corner of York Street and Kent Street, the building provides 808 square metres of floor area and sits on a 598 square metre freehold site.
It has two street frontages with nearly 30 metres on Kent Street and 20 metres onto York.
It is directly opposite Osbourne Lane, a premium retail and F&B precinct, home to a mix of local and international brands including Aesop, Father Rabbit and Simon James, Thompson adds.
“Kent Street is highly accessible with good on-street car parking and two public car park buildings located either side of the property, delivering more than 500 spaces.
"The Newmarket train station is also only a five minutes walk away, with regular bus services located on Broadway and Khyber Pass Road,” Thompson says.
“It is also less than two minutes from Broadway, Rialto Cinemas and the University of Auckland Newmarket Campus.”
As for the building’s future, Thompson points out that it is Zoned Metropolitan Centre, with a height limit between 33.5 metres and 35 metres, which means that there is an opportunity for high-rise redevelopment should a new owner decided to do that.
The Metropolitan Centre zone permits a wide range of development including offices, apartments, hotels and retail space.
- Supplied by Whillans
