Strand shopping plaza up for sale at $15.5M
The Strand shopping centre
(CNS): One of Seven Mile Beach’s larger shopping centres is up for sale with a price tag of $15,495,000. The Strand Plaza, which is home to one of Foster’s supermarkets and Kirk Freeport’s stores, is on the market and described by the real estate agent who is marketing the property as a “truly exceptional opportunity” — at least for those who can afford it. The shopping plaza, which sits between the West Bay Road and Canal Point Road and a stone’s throw from the Ritz-Carlton, was the largest on Grand Cayman when it was built in the mid 1990’s with almost 80,000 sq ft of space across more than six acres.
Kim Lund, the real estate broker who is selling the shopping centre at the heart of Grand Cayman’s tourist area, said Foster’s and Kirk Freeport were two of the original owners of their store space and they anchored the centre, bringing in a high volume of traffic for the other tenants.
Since then, other shop spaces have been bought but there remains a significant number of tenants at the site that will generate income for the new owners. The current sale includes 36,420 sq ft of tenanted space.
Lund said he has been involved with the property over the years, including the sale to the current owners in 2005, when the Griesel family, who had developed the property, sold it to Strand Property Ltd.
Lund said that the plaza, which is currently owned by an overseas investor, has 24 tenanted shop spaces and will, at the listed price, provide a net income return of 8.75%, which was already a solid long term investment but it could improve over the next few years.
Lund said that Grand Cayman was facing an “unprecedented development boom” in the Seven Mile Beach corridor and other parts of the island.
Category: Local Business, Real Estate, Retail
Looks like another property to be scoped up by Dart once the price, or property sinks a little lower.
It seems unlikely that any of the retail units up for sale are making a profit. In Cayman the only way to be successful as a retailer is to own your own place. Paying rent is like throwing money down a drain. If you can’t pay the electricity bill and staff wages/pension/health-insurance AND rent, you are doomed to fail. How many kitchen tools, curtains, dresses, bottles of perfume do you have to sell in a month to cover these costs? Kirk Freeport can afford to operate at a loss just to have a presence in the area; Foster’s know how to be profitable; the dentist charges so much he probably makes something, all the rest are failures just waiting to happen.
This analysis does not just apply to The Strand but to all retail-unit complexes. It is entirely up to the developer/owner whether they want to help locally-owned businesses to succeed by charging an affordable rent, or even a rent-to-buy scheme (tell that one to Dart!) or charge so much that businesses come and go leaving their owners with bank loans to try to pay off when and if they can find a job after their business fails.
The Grand Harbour complex is also for sale, LESS the Pharmacy and Hurleys: Guess why!
Is it still sinking?
And they are selling it when there is more development in the area which will increase foot traffic and drive the success of this space….why sell when Kimpton is around the corner. Fact is the clubs/bars in there are not successful. Something in this milk aint clean.
Spoiled milk for sure.
There are some hard times here on these Islands- and, it will get worse before it gets better.
What else are they (i.e. the “Owners”) selling?