BUSINESS SITES.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVI, 13 November 1926, Page 5

BUSINESS SITES.

HIGH VALUES IN WELLINGTON. . j WEEKLY RENTALS OF £1 PER FOOT. (By Telegraph—Special to The Star.) WELLINGTON, Nov. 12. A Supreme Court action, in which the owner of 60 feet of frontage to Cambridge Terrace, near- Courtenay Place, is claiming £20,000 from the Government, which desires the. site for a new post office, has drawn attention to the remarkable advance of values in the Courteney Place area. Ten years ago it w:as apparently out of the busy section, though ‘Wellington’s produce auction marts were in the vicinity. Then i>icture theatres commenced to multiply and new ones moved towards Courtenay Place. Tumbledown shops were remodelled and substantial buildings, including some skyscrapers, were put up, for the area is handy to the wharves and involves no hill climbing. The evidence in this case shows that the claimant bought 61 feet in 1922 for £6600. He produced one of his tenants, a grocer, who had agreed to purchase part of the property for £15,000, and another trader who had, through an agent, submitted an offer of £14,750 for the whole property, which the claimant had refused. Valuers called by the claimant supported substantially his estimate, based on sales in the vicinity, one stating that since the beginning of this year there had been a rise of £4O per foot in Cambridge Terrace property. The Government value of the area in dispute is £10,350, including improvements to the value of £ISOO. Two Government valuers gave evidence that the area with the buildings to-day is worth £IO,BOO. Thus, on the testimony of witnesses for the Crown, the claimant has secured an unearned increment of £4200 in four years. Similar rapid increases in business site values have taken place more in the heart- of the city, with the result that the average rents of Lambton Quay shops have risen nearly 60 per cent in three years, the usual rental charged for such busy “stands” being equivalent to £1 per week for each foot of frontage. A large numbers of shops with ample frontages have been subdivided owing to the, difficulty found bv tenants in meeting the landlords’ ideas of .rental value. This method has been successful, for there are no empty shops.