Officeworks will open only its second location in the Illawarra at a bulky goods retail park in Albion Park Rail.
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The stationery giant will join nine other retailers including Spotlight at the Park Central development, next to Albion Park Rail Bunnings.
The project has suffered some setbacks, however leasing agent Ben Mostyn of Knight Frank said stores would open before Christmas this year.
"We had quite a bit of delays with the rain, because there was an extensive period when we were doing earthworks that it was quite wet on site, but we're past that now.
Joining Officeworks and Spotlight are a range of national retailers, some of which have until now not had a presence in the Illawarra, including Anaconda, Supercheap Auto, safety retailer RSEA and Autobarn.
Mr Mostyn said with the precinct located close to growth areas of Albion Park, Dapto and Shellharbour there was an increasing demand for large format retail alongside centres such as Stockland Shellharbour.
"There's an under-supply of this type of land that has been purposed for large-format retail," he said.
The industrial real estate market has experienced a boom during COVID and in the year following, as retailers along with data centres and fulfilment warehouses compete for limited amounts of land.
Australia's industrial and logistics vacancy rates are the lowest around the globe, at just 0.6 per cent, with NSW the tightest market with vacancy rates of 0.2 per cent in the second half of 2022, according to real estate consultancy CBRE.
The Albion Park Rail precinct is fully leased and will in total have space for 10 retailers and a cafe across 14,000 square metres and 300 car spaces.
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