Like the ambitious Brisbane Road Carpark shop fronts, Sunshine Coast Council has struggled to lease three commercial tenancies within Maroochydore’s new City Hall building via public tender.
But this time the organisation was quicker to act to acquire new tenants.
An invitation to tender for the commercial tenancies of the new Sunshine Coast City Hall building was released on September 10.
But the council has now opted to set the rent on the three ground floor commercial tenancies themselves, after potential buyers failed to snavel up the leases through the public tender.
A council spokesperson said the market rental assessment was commercial-in-confidence, however, the council would make sure its negotiation with potential tenants complies with statutory and legislative requirements.
“The rent set for the city hall tenancies will be consistent and in line with council’s statutory and legislative requirements as per the Local Government Regulation 2012,” the spokesperson said.
“Given the short time these tenancies have been on the market, council considers this a routine process and good opportunity for the local business market.”
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The new potential city hall business ventures will soon become available to the public to rent – with council working with its appointed real estate and marketing agency Ranbury Management Group to progress further market of the commercial space within city hall.
The three city hall tenancies are intended to create an activated street frontage, enhancing and complementing the look and feel of the building.
Last month, after a similar struggle, councillors decided to take two of the three Brisbane Road car park shop front tenancies to the open market through the same agency.
The council confirmed that after a market evaluation assessment, the rental prices of the new city hall tenancy leases would remain competitive, and “the face rent will be set at or above the market valuation as determined by the registered valuer”.
Thus, admitting the lease rents could still possibly be set higher than the current rental market price.
A council spokesperson said to make sure it remained competitive with the private sector and capitalised on the momentum of the tender, an exception was granted at the ordinary council meeting on October 27, “to continue to market tenancy spaces on the open market and to seek private treaty agreements”.
A private treaty sale is where the seller sets the price they want for their property, generally after research into the market and discussion.
But before the unanimous vote, Division 4 councillor Joe Natoli reiterated to the chamber how, “again, we’ve seen the same issues with the park-and-go retail spaces below in the current retail market”.
“It is difficult through a very constrictive process of having to go through tender,” Cr Natoli said.
“We’re almost disadvantaged by having to go through that.”
Find out more about the new City Hall tenancies here.
