By Claire Reilly
Harvey Norman has put its Lismore shopfront up for sale, with the retailer currently on the hunt for a larger location to house its north-eastern New South Wales business. But despite the retailer’s strengths in property, executive chairman Gerry Harvey said the company had a “big incentive not to build anything at the moment” as its retail division has “come to a halt”.
The 2,738 square-metre Lismore Harvey Norman, located on 17 Zadoc Street in the centre of Lismore, is currently listed for sale by North Coast Commercial Real Estate. The store’s furniture and bedding franchisee Bill Kennedy told local paper The Coffs Coast Advocate that the store would go through “a bit of a refurbishment,” but that Harvey Norman had no plans to leave the town.
“The Harvey Norman Lismore store has been here for 30 years and will probably be here for another 30 years, as long as Harvey Norman is around,” he said. “We are looking for another site, probably around where Bunnings is located, to build bigger and better premises.”
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Although Harvey Norman has a strong property portfolio in Australia, worth $2.14 billion as of 31 December 2012, Gerry Harvey said the retailer may be forced to lease new premises rather than investing in building new premises for Lismore.
“It may be that we take a lease with the new owner for three, five or ten years, while we complete any new store plans,” Harvey told The Coffs Coast Advocate.
“Lismore has been under consideration for a long time, but at the moment it is very difficult to build anything, because the cost of building is high and the rents that you can get are not good enough. We just built a new centre on the Sunshine Coast and it cost over $100 million to build and yet we had to write it down to $70 million.
“We have a big incentive not to build anything at the moment. We've never been in this situation that our real estate division has come to a halt,” he said. “In 50 years we have never been as bad as we are at the moment in terms of developments.”
Harvey would not comment on a potential new location for the Lismore business, but a Kennedy’s bid for a site near the local Bunnings would put the new store on the western fringes of Lismore, near the local airport.
Harvey Norman's Lismore store (Source: Real Commercial).
An aerial view of the property.
Inside the store's electrical department.
The store's rear loading dock.
Below: Harvey Norman Lismore's location on Zadoc Street.