Charter Hall Pays $250m for Qld, NSW Regional Retail

Vicinity Centres has offloaded three shopping centres in Queensland and New South Wales in a rare sell-off as regional retail assets remain robust. 

Charter Hall is the buyer, paying $250.3 million to extend its $4.6-billion retail portfolio of convenience shopping centres.

The assets were Whitsunday Plaza at Airlie Beach, Gympie Central on the Sunshine Coast and Armidale Central in NSW.

The assets have a combined turnover of $450.6 million.

All are anchored by Woolworths supermarkets and collectively have supermarket productivity of $18,245 per square metre.

CBRE head of retail capital markets for the Pacific Simon Rooney managed the off-market expressions-of-interest campaign for the assets.

“Opportunities of this scale and quality are rarely available and the combination of the portfolio’s exceptional tenant performance and the dominance of these assets within their respective catchments drove significant interest,” Rooney said. 

▲ Armidale Central was among the assets traded in the deal.

Around $2.1 billion in sub-regional shopping centre assets were transacted in 2025 and 2026, according to CBRE. 

The portfolio acquired by Charter Hall has long-term leases with national and chain retailers representing 91 per cent of the portfolio’s combined gross lettable area of 50,978sq m. 

The move is part of a strategic shift by Vicinity, which is doubling down on its premium shopping assets and undertaking an asset recycling strategy. 

As part of this, Vicinity acquired the controlling stake in Brisbane’s Uptown Centre on Queen Street Mall earlier this month and is planning to accelerate a $350-million redevelopment program for the inner-city retail hub. 

Stockland breaks ground on retail precinct

Meanwhile, Stockland is progressing a retail precinct south of Brisbane at its Yarrabilba community. 

The development, at Dixon Circuit, Logan, 45km south of the Brisbane CBD, will comprise 8000sq m of lettable area. 

Construction is under way on Stage 1. The wider precinct already has confirmed Guzman y Gomez, Subway and JAX Tyres as tenants. 

A dedicated bulky goods retail offering is due to follow as part of Stage 2.

▲ The retail precinct and apartments at Yarrabilba near Logan are now under construction.

Stockland will also deliver MountView, an apartment development aimed at premium apartment buyers, as part of the precinct. 

Ground-floor retail and restaurants will be topped by three levels of apartments. 

Yarrabilba was designated a Priority Development Area in 2010.

When fully developed over the next 30 years, the 2222ha area will have 20,000 homes.

Stockland acquired the 15,600-lot project from Lendlease as part of the latter’s offloading in 2024 of a dozen masterplanned communities in a $1.3-billion deal.