Swords shopping mall back on market with €1.9m guide

A shopping mall in Swords, Co Dublin, recently sold as part of a loan portfolio, is back on the market in the expectation that it will be much sought after by Irish investors looking to cash in on the heavily reduced valuations.

Johnny O’Connor of DTZ Sherry FitzGerald is guiding €1,950,000 for the Rivermall Building at Main Street, Swords, which is producing a rent roll of €226,900.

Whoever buys the investment can bank on an initial yield of 11.14 per cent after standard purchaser’s costs of 4.46 per cent are taken into account. The complex includes nine shops, four of them facing directly on to Main Street and the remainder running along Rivermall Lane.

There are 11 units in all with an overall floor area of 735sq m (7,909sq ft) and 15 on-site car parking spaces at the rear.

The traders fronting on to Main Street include the Chinese takeaway Summer Inn whose 35-year lease runs from 1985 at an abated rent of €28,800.

The highest rent of €38,200 is paid by the EBS for a ground floor unit of 40.91sq m (440sq ft) which is also held on a 35-year lease.

However the EBS does not trade from the site and is expected to sublet the premises with five years to run on the lease. Vodafone has also closed its retail unit which is rented at €30,000 a year and has another 13 years to run.

The Wooden Spoon cafe rents on a short lease at €18,000 per annum.

The largest unit of all with a floor area of 109.44sq m (1178sq ft) is rented by Chilli Shaker at an abated rent of €32,200 – €13,800 less than the original rent.

O’Connor said that they expected a high level of interest in the investment, an attractive lot size with a superb Main Street location at a time when there was a strong demand for retail investments.

He suggested that there were excellent prospects for rental growth and also a unique opportunity to gain full control of the complex.