There has been a spate of mega property deals and other significant changes in Byron Bay’s CBD

Big changes are happening in the town as Byron institutions and other landmark or prominently-located properties change hands.

Byron’s hot property market has been red hot for an extended period.

But there’s the sense of a significant shift about the town as property owners cash in on a booming property market with the sale of landmark locations.

The latest significant property to hit the market is in one of the most well-visited spots in the town.

The building at 2 Jonson Street, home to the Quiksilver store – across the road from the Beach Hotel and overlooking Main Beach – has been listed for expressions of interest.

The building was previously owned by Hizan Holdings Pty Ltd, a company which had an interest in the Beach Hotel until 2007 and is also associated with other local businesses.

According to RP Data, it was then owned by Byron Bay Beach Hotel Pty Ltd, then L & S Byron Pty Ltd from 2013 to 2015.

Investment trust QuickieBB Pty Ltd purchased the property in 2015 for $7 million, according to available records.

The neighbouring Beach Hotel Byron Bay – including the business and land – sold to Moelis for $104 million early last year.

On the other end of Jonson St, work has begun on a new mixed-used building, to include 28 units on the corner of Browning Street.

The development, estimated to involve a $19.3 million build, will mark the first new permanent housing for the CBD in decades.

Three residential lots were combined and their freestanding houses demolished to make way for the new construction, which will also have ground-level commercial spaces.

In marketing material the developers tried to make “SOJO” (as in, south Jonson Street) a thing but this didn’t quite catch on.

While work progresses there, a development application has been lodged for a new supermarket and two-storey shopping centre on a nearby block that runs behind Mitre 10.

This is right beside the Byron Bay Bypass on Butler Street, completed and opened earlier this year.

If approved, it would bring the swanky Harris Farm Markets brand to the Northern Rivers for the first time.

Mercato on Byron shopping centre sold alongside the adjacent land which used to be home to the old Woolworth’s store – encompassing 98 to 116 Jonson Street – for a rumoured $200 million in March.

While the shopping centre itself is shiny and new, having opened in 2019, the land next door is ripe for development.

Mercato, its former owners, wanted to build a $33.9 million, 146-room hotel there but this plan was knocked back by the Northern Regional Planning Panel in September 2020.

To the south of the Mercato shopping centre, the Byron Bay Holiday Village Backpackers this year sold for more than $18 million and developer Podia has revealed plans to transform it into shop-top serviced apartments.

116-118, Jonson Street, Byron Bay, home to the Byron Bay Holiday Village Backpackers.

The backpackers had been owned and operated by the same family for almost four decades.

Katie Wilson, whose family had run the property for 38 years, wrote a letter of “unwavering support” for the plans to change the property’s use.

Another long-term family business to change hands it the Great Northern Hotel, run by the Mooney family for many years but recently purchased by Scott Didier from Johns Lyng Group and Scott Emery, who founded online lender MoneyMe, for a rumoured $80 million.

The Northern was bought along with an adjacent hotel in Lateen Lane.

And a Byron institution, Cheeky Monkey’s nightclub and an adjoining massage spa, has been snapped up by Merivale, the company of restaurateur Justin Hemmes and there are plans to turn this space into a restaurant and bar.

The land which is home to SAE Institute Byron Bay, on Ewingsdale Road, is also on the market.

TAFE NSW has meanwhile lodged a development application for a new connected learning centre in Byron’s Art and Industry Estate.

Change is also afoot on public land: Sandhills Estate will become home to a new skate park as part of a $2.6 million revitalisation.