Tag: Kenmore Village

Two of Kenmore’s major shopping centres (Kenmore Village and Kenmore Plaza); the commercial buildings at 13 Marshall Lane, which includes the Petbarn and Jetts Fitness sites; and more than 1.5 hectares of land at 18 Bielby Road in Kenmore Hills, could all be heading for new ownership, as part of what CBRE describes as Australia’s largest retail portfolio offering since 2018.

The properties make Kenmore an unusually concentrated part of a portfolio assembled over several decades, now being brought to market by Brisbane-based Jen Retail Properties.

Across Australia, the Jen property portfolio stretches from Sydney’s Market City to Melbourne’s Spencer Outlet Centre and the Q Super Centre on the Gold Coast, with CBRE putting its anticipated value at more than $1 billion.

A Landmark Dating Back to Kenmore’s Transformation

Of the four properties, Kenmore Village carries the longest local history. It opened in 1969 as Kenmore was rapidly changing from a largely rural district into suburban Brisbane, with housing estates replacing former farmland.

The original drive-in shopping centre featured a Coles New World and the supermarket chain’s distinctive space-rocket sign. Kenmore State School enrolments tell another part of the story: after averaging about 30 children a year from 1900 to 1955, they reached 101 in 1960 and 737 by 1970.

Kenmore remains strongly family-oriented today. At the 2021 Census, 80.8 per cent of Kenmore’s occupied households were family households, compared with 71 per cent across Queensland.

More than half a century after it opened, Kenmore Village is now a 13,626-square-metre centre anchored by Coles and supported by specialty retail and allied health businesses.

Another Chapter Was Already Taking Shape

The timing of the sale is particularly interesting because Kenmore Village was already entering another period of change. Jen Retail Properties secured conditional approval to redevelop the northern mall, replacing the existing mall and Level 1 office areas with a new ground-level development, new entrances and a refreshed western frontage.

Separately, work completed in 2024 included a standalone Mitre 10, a northern building extension and changes to car parking and older areas of the centre.

A future owner, therefore, would be taking on more than a long-established neighbourhood shopping centre. Kenmore Village comes with more than five decades of local history, substantial recent works and a conditionally approved redevelopment proposal for its northern mall.

Kenmore Plaza Joins the Sale

A short distance away at 841 Moggill Road, Kenmore Plaza is the second major shopping centre in the local offering. The 10,008-square-metre centre is anchored by Woolworths and Aldi, with First Choice Liquor, Kenmore Tavern and McDonald’s among its other major occupants.

Jen Properties describes its trade area as extending from Chapel Hill and Fig Tree Pocket west towards Bellbowrie, giving the centre a reach well beyond Kenmore itself.

That wider reach is significant. The ABS counted 47,733 people across the broader Kenmore–Brookfield–Moggill area at the 2021 Census, giving some indication of the population base surrounding retail centres in this part of Brisbane’s west.

The Other Two Kenmore Properties

The scale of the local offering becomes clearer when the other two properties are added.

At 13 Marshall Lane, directly across from Kenmore Plaza, two freestanding commercial buildings occupied by Jetts Fitness and Petbarn provide a combined 1,167 square metres of gross lettable area.

The fourth property is substantially different. At 18 Bielby Road in Kenmore Hills, a 15,341-square-metre parcel adjoins Kenmore Village and is described by CBRE as being zoned Emerging Community, with an assessed developable area of approximately 4,750 square metres.

Its inclusion adds another dimension to the Kenmore offering. Alongside established shopping and commercial properties is a substantial landholding with future development possibilities, although any eventual use of the site would remain subject to the relevant planning requirements and approvals.

The Family Behind the Properties

Behind the portfolio is a family property business that has maintained a comparatively low public profile despite building substantial holdings along Australia’s eastern seaboard.

Jen Retail Properties was established in Brisbane as Intro International Limited in 1991 by Denis Jen, whose business career had begun decades earlier in Asia. Orphaned at a young age in China, he went on to work in Shanghai before relocating to Taiwan, where he became involved in the country’s developing clothing export industry. His business interests later extended into Singapore and Australia.

It was an eventful path to becoming a major Australian property investor — one Denis Jen eventually chronicled in his autobiography, A Thousand Ounces of Gold. He died in 2020 aged 96, with his son Winston Jen now serving as executive chairman of the family-owned company and Sandra Kairl as chief executive.

In announcing the portfolio campaign, Ms Kairl described it as the start of a “new chapter for the business”, paying tribute to employees who had spent years — and in some cases decades — with the company, as well as the retailers and commercial tenants that had been part of its properties.

More Than $1 Billion on the Table

CBRE has been appointed to manage a five-week expressions-of-interest campaign scheduled to begin in early September and close in late October. The agency puts the anticipated portfolio value at more than $1 billion and describes it as Australia’s largest retail portfolio offering since 2018.

The properties are initially being offered as an opportunity to acquire the portfolio in one line. No buyer has been announced, and the campaign does not signal the closure of Kenmore Village or Kenmore Plaza or the departure of their retailers. What remains unknown is who may eventually own them.

For longtime Kenmore Hills resident Ken Ryan, a former town planner and the Secretary of Kenmore Rotary, Kenmore Village and Kenmore Plaza have become “a local institution,” with the Jen family’s connection to the area extending beyond ownership of the shopping centres.

“Jen Group has been a long-term owner that has been supporting local events, including Kenmore Rotary and sponsorship of the leadership program at Kenmore State High School,” Mr Ryan said.

More than half a century after shoppers first pulled into the new Kenmore Village beneath the Coles New World space-rocket sign, one of Kenmore’s most familiar landmarks could now be approaching another significant change.

Published 28-August-2026