LISBURN's Bow Street Mall shopping centre has been put on the market for £18 million.
The city's only covered shopping mall, whose occupiers include Primark, Dunnes Stores and Menarys has been put up for sale by owner Patrick McCormack.
The 341,137 sq ft centre was built in 1988 and extended on several occasions, the last being in 2005. The site comprises 55 retail units, five anchor units and a food court. Three of the anchor units are occupied by a 38,416 sq ft Dunnes Stores, Primark (24,114 sq ft) and Tesco (23,928 sq ft).
Other high profile tenants at the shopping centre include JD Sports, New Look, Ann Summers and Costa Coffee. The centre also features a 1,010 space multi-storey car park and recorded annual footfall of around 3.2 million last year.
Savills and McKibbin Commercial Property Consultants have been instructed to sell the property, with offers sought in excess of £18m. The purchaser can expect a net initial yield of 10.77 per cent.
Meanwhile new residential market figures have revealed that rental prices in the north are rising faster than the UK average.
The latest HomeLet Rental Index data for September shows that the average rent in Northern Ireland has increased by 4.4 per cent over the year to £664. By comparison the average rent in the UK increased by 1.7 per cent from the same time a year ago to £943. Excluding London, the average rent in the UK is £780 - up 1.8 per cent on last year.
The region with the largest yearly increase is Scotland, showing a 5.6 per cent hike since September 2017. Last month saw 11 of the 12 UK regions reporting an increase in rents in comparison to the same period a year ago.
The initial findings from the company’s survey of over 2,900 landlords further show that more than a third have concerns over Brexit’s impact on the market.
Martin Totty, chief executive at HomeLet said:
"Our initial results show that the three main concerns that landlords have are the macro-economic impacts they face on their finances - further changes to legislation, the potential implications of Brexit and house price values.
“The results suggest that while landlords are not planning to leave the market at this stage, uncertainty over the wider economic picture - especially when Brexit is added into the mix - could easily change this."
