The approximately 3,590 square metre industrial-zoned landholding in the Te Rapa district of Hamilton is surrounded on all sides by factories, light manufacturing/engineering plants, and warehousing properties.

Over the years, the site’s charitable owner has allowed various light industrial tenants to store materials and multiple work vehicles around the property at ‘mates rates’ – paying ad-hoc ‘peppercorn’ rentals. No formal leases are in place for any of the group occupying space on the property.

Now the freehold land at 23 Bristol Place are being marketed for sale by auction at noon on March 7 through Bayleys Hamilton. Salespeople Rebecca Bruce and Jordan Metcalfe said the property was being sold as vacant – with all the existing tenants moving out before any settlement date.

“The obvious potential for this property is to remove the low-value structures on site, which to be honest, wouldn’t take much effort, and to rebuild a new entity from scratch,” Ms Bruce said.

“In essence, with very little value being placed in the buildings on site, any potential purchaser is only really buying the flat land for its future potential.”

Hamilton City Council’s rating valuation of the property mirror’s Ms Bruce’s assessment – estimating the various offices and semi-circular barn-like garage storage units to have a combined value of $10,000.

Ms Bruce said the property’s T-shaped configuration - with a substantial access frontage onto Bristol Place, combined with the size of land available - would lend itself to development of multiple terraced industrial warehousing, manufacturing, or engineering entity-tenanted units of between 100 – 200 square metres in floorplate.

“Subject to appropriate council consenting, potential buyers who have already viewed the site have told us there is the possibility of creating at a terraced tilt slab-style block of units at the rear of the site, with the potential to add further units along the front portion of the property adjacent to the driveway,” she said.

“Intensification along these lines would deliver a far more efficient use of the land, and would go some way meeting strong market demand for small industrial premises in Te Rapa.

“Hamilton Council’s industrial zoning for the Bristol Place land allows for premises with mezzanine-level offices to be built – which would maximise the amount of ground floor space on offer.”