13 October 2020

Centuria opens expanded Woolworths regional distribution centre

Townsville DC becomes a game-changer for Woolworths

Centuria Industrial REIT (ASX: CIP) has announced its Jay Street, Bohle (Townsville) distribution centre’s expansion has completed and sole tenant, Woolworths, officially opened the facility on Friday 2 October.

The Townsville Regional Distribution Centre (TRDC) completed a six-month $12m redevelopment, doubling its footprint to 10,416sqm and enabling Woolworths to improve its stock availability to North Queensland.

Woolworths’ TRDC lease length has extended to 12 years from seven.

Jesse Curtis, CIP Fund Manager, commented, “We are excited to open our expanded distribution centre for Woolworths. The expansion demonstrates our strong customer relationships through fostering their growth while achieving a mutual beneficial outcome.

“In the past, North Queensland has experienced supply chain issues in the face of natural disasters. The expansion of this critical infrastructure to Woolworths provides is a significantly increased capacity to store more perishable and non-perishable produce and products including the addition of temperature-controlled space.

“Centuria’s improved facility now provides a cold storage area about the same size as three tennis courts and the dry-store area is the equivalent of almost three-and-a-half Olympic swimming pools.

“A key CIP strategy is to focus on businesses in identified growth sectors to provide long-term sustainable income. The development and expansion of this facility has provided increased exposure to the growing food logistics sector and has demonstrated our track record in delivering value add projects to support the fund’s growth.”

The new expanded facility includes an additional 4,196 sqm of dry-store space, a 641sqm staging area, 85 sqm of driver amenities servicing 10 new loading bays and a total 737sqm of cold-store space with various temperature ranges including 2°C, 7°C and 13°C. This is in addition to the existing 4,756sqm facility.

Woolworths occupies 64,612sqm across CIP’s portfolio.

Woolworths Group’s General Manager for Queensland Supply Chain, Dale Acton said: “Townsville has faced tough times in recent years, and we wanted to do our bit to aid the economic recovery after the 2019 floods.

“Delivering this project in partnership with Centuria has injected $12 million of fresh investment into the region – creating 170 jobs during construction and 30 new permanent jobs at the expanded distribution centre. Most importantly, it has delivered a better, more resilient supply chain network for our North Queensland customers.”

TRDC is located in the fringe Townsville suburb of Bohle, in close proximity to the Townsville airport. It has excellent connectivity to the Bruce Highway, A1 and other major North Queensland arterials.

Spaceframe was the appointed building contractor.