Newmarket Hotel site on North Tce sold to Australian Unity in $38.5m deal

Plans to build twin apartment towers on one of Adelaide’s busiest corners have been shelved and the site sold for a huge sum – with the buyer a huge key to what may go there.

Plans to build twin 32-storey apartment towers on one of Adelaide’s busiest intersections have been shelved, with health, wealth and care services giant Australian Unity splashing out $38.5m to take over the landmark Newmarket Hotel site in the CBD.

The sale price is more than three times the $10.8m vendors - Singaporean-backed One North Terrace (Aust) Pty Ltd - paid for the 3000sq m site on the corner of North Tce and West Tce in 2016.

Led locally by the Lee family, One North Terrace (Aust) had plans for a $200m development involving a partial demolition of the historic 140-year old hotel and two high-rise towers with apartments, serviced apartments, offices and retail tenancies.

Development approval for the project expires in July.

Australian Unity said the site would be added to its $3.87bn unlisted healthcare property trust (AUHPT) - a portfolio of hospitals, day surgeries, medical centres, pathology centres and aged care properties across the country.

Artist’s impression of the twin tower plan that was approved in 2021. Picture: Cox Architects

It did not provide specifics around the development it had planned for the site, other than to say it would bring its “significant experience in healthcare-related development to provide long-term healthcare infrastructure solutions”.

“A hallmark of the AUHPT’s strategy over the past twenty years has been its increased involvement in healthcare precincts including in key growth corridors along Australia’s eastern seaboard,” Australian Unity healthcare property general manager Chris Smith said.

“It currently owns private hospitals, medical centres and other healthcare related assets in 18 healthcare precincts.”

The North Tce site is located in Adelaide’s BioMed City precinct, opposite the Royal Adelaide Hospital and near the proposed new Women’s and Children’s Hospital.

Its sale comes just two weeks after receivers were appointed to sell off bordering land owned by colourful businessman and car park operator Damian Lester.

The Newmarket Hotel on the corner of North and West Terrace.

Mr Lester had his own plans to develop the land that wraps around the Newmarket Hotel.

It had been short-listed as a potential location for a new 14,000sq m laboratory for SA Pathology before SA Pathology’s move was put on hold last year when the new Labor government committed to a major review of the city’s future hospital and health infrastructure needs.

Mr Lester’s companies that own the land fell into receivership on April 21, and it is understood commercial property agents have been appointed to sell the site in the coming weeks.