KSS October eKourier

PROPERTY

SPOTLIGHT ON ARTARMON2

Neutral Bay, we also pick up residential business from these areas.

Our 4m+ high ceiling drive up units are a unique feature that is popular with many of our commercial customers. This allows for things such as pallet racking and forklift use inside the unit. One such customer utilising the centres unique features is Julian from Back Vintage Wines. Managing his wine distri- bution business from his mini warehouse.

T he KSS Artarmon2 property is leased from SBS Television next door to us and was previously the studio space where many of their shows were filmed. In recent years as TV programs progressed to more often than not be filmed on location, SBS had less need for studios and the site was then leased to and fitted out by Millers Self Storage. It then became part of KSS in the Millers Acquisition of 2004. Unsure exactly when the property was developed into storage as it was originally a Millers site, but if we had to guess we would say it was in the late 80’s or early 90’s. As the original use for the building was large open studio space we would imagine that the original development would have been fairly straight forward. A conver- sion from television studio space into a storage facility consisting of mini warehouses, drive-up units at the front, ground floor units at the rear and a lift access to the upper level. The key feature at Artarmon 2 is the ease of access. The centre boasts a large driveway that loops around the front half of the centre offering a

number of units ranging from 9.0DR to 85.6DR sizes. Our upper level is also extremely easy to access with customer/truck parking and trolleys right next to the lift. ARTARMON COULD BE CONSIDERED THE STORAGE CAPITAL OF AUSTRALIA, WITH NO LESS THAN EIGHT STORAGE FACILITIES WITHIN A FEW HUNDRED METRES OF EACH OTHER Artarmon could be considered the storage capital of Australia, with no less than eight storage facilities within a few hundred metres of each other. Even though the local market is so heavily saturated, the facilities in the area all generally run at high occupancy. A lot of the occupancy here is generated from our location being in the middle of the Artarmon industrial area, in which we service many of our neighbouring businesses. Also being the closest storage centre to many Lower North Shore suburbs such as Mosman and ‘ ‘

We often refer to Artarmon2 as a “pocket rocket”. Despite being one of the physically smaller centres (72/97) with only 5,177sqm of rentable space, our year to date income is one of the highest (15/97). The centre punches well above its weight generally selling $15,000+ per month in merchandise, running at 90%+ occupancy and at $45.39 has the highest asking yield in KSS. The Team here consists of (L to R) Trevor Paterson (Part Time Assistant Manager), Lorena Yepes (Assistant Manager) and Mark Burgess (Centre Manager). As the centre is in a rented property our options to expand are limited. Also, as the centre generally operates at high occupancy this somewhat limits our opportunities to grow income through increasing rented units. Because of this we have extra focus on growing income through means such as maximising yield on rented units and merchandise sales.

KSS Artarmon2 Team Trevor Paterson, Lorena Yepes and Mark Burgess

18 Kennards Kourier Oct 2021