Integrated property group, St Hilliers, has sold the House and Home bulky goods retail development in Nowra to a private investor for approximately $15 million.

St Hilliers purchased the 1.9 hectare development site located in Central Avenue in November 2002 to develop a bulky goods retail facility to service communities south of Kiama to Bateman's Bay.

St Hilliers Group Managing Director, Tim Casey said: "We were very happy with the excellent results from the Nowra development, which was entered into based on strong research.

"Our analysis of the demographics in the area gave us a high level of confidence that there would be good demand with strong future growth potential and this was vindicated by the fact that key national retailers took space in the centre," Mr Casey said.

CB Richard Ellis' Richard Horne and Philip Gartland, together with joint agent McKenzie Hall, negotiated the sale of the House and Home bulky goods retail facility on behalf of St Hilliers. The sale price reflects a yield of 7.9% on a fully leased basis.

According to Philip Gartland, "bulky goods retail developments are ideally suited to high growth residential areas and the south coast of NSW is one of the highest residential growth areas in Australia. Developments such as this Nowra project, with a tenancy profile leased to national retailers, are extremely rare in the current market".

The 8,000 square metres, single storey House and Home facility was designed by architectural firm, Leffler Simes, and construction was completed in October 2004. Pre-leases were secured from a number of national retailers, including the Good Guys, Sleep City, Everyday Living, Oz Design and Eurolight, prior to commencement of construction. The development is part of St Hilliers growing portfolio of retail projects that it has developed or constructed for clients.

Among St Hilliers recent retail development projects is the $36 million, 12,000 square metres Megamart bulky goods retail facility in Alexandria, South Sydney, which was sold to Colonial First State Property‚Äö?Ñ????ë?¬•s Direct Property Investment Fund.

St Hilliers extensive contracting experience includes new construction, fitout and refurbishment of major supermarkets and specialty retail projects.

Recent contracting projects include the $35 million retail precinct on the site of the former Melbourne GPO for MGPO Pty Ltd and the $30 million Style at Home bulky goods retail outlet in Alexandria, South Sydney for Charter Hall Holdings Pty Ltd.

St Hilliers currently has under construction the new town centre retail development, "The G", at Gungahlin in Canberra for Coles Myer Ltd. The $28 million mixed use shopping centre and commercial office development is located at Hibberson Street, Gungahlin and is scheduled for completion in late 2005.

Tim Casey said: "As an established developer, St Hilliers brings the same approach it has for its own development activities to its contracting projects, which is appreciated by our clients".

"Through our development projects we have investigated new and better ways of doing things to produce a strong return on our investments and our contracting clients benefit from these valuable skills and the 'building smarts' we apply particularly in the design and construction area," Mr Casey said.

St Hilliers expertise in this area is further evidenced by the current negotiations it has entered into with several external parties to construct a number of bulky goods retail projects.