‘Two parties’ vying to pay $100m-plus for Imperial Hotel Gold Coast, formerly called Palazzo Versace

A deal worth well above $100m is in the works for one of the Gold Coast’s best known five-star hotels. Read the latest

Two parties are vying for the chance to spend more than $100m on one of the Gold Coast’s best known five-star hotels.

The owners of Imperial Hotel Gold Coast – formerly and still widely known as Palazzo Versace – have been courted by prospective buyers for more than a year, with one party said to be edging closer to a deal.

General manager Richard Clarke said the owners had been talking to “two interested parties”, but “neither of them is at the stage where a contract has been signed”.

“The owners have not made a decision on the sale at this point,” he said.

General Manager Richard Clarke with the new Imperial Hotel signage at the hotel formerly known as Palazzo Versace. Picture: Glenn Hampson

The hotel was stripped of its designer name in July after the Italian fashion house declined to renew its branding contract.

Where it once traded on the exclusivity and excess that oozed from the global brand, the hotel now shares a name with scores of venues across Australia – joining the ranks of other Imperials in Beenleigh, Murwillumbah, Coonabarabran, Bowral and Eumundi – at least until it finds a new owner.

Talk of big deals and new owners has been rife among the property’s wealthy condo owners since an $114m deal to buy the property fell over last year.

The new Imperial Hotel signage at the hotel formerly known as Palazzo Versace. Picture Glenn Hampson

Some say they’ve seen groups of potential buyers from Dubai come through with sales agents, others say a German buyer is in the wings, while another claims Gianarelli Group, developer of neighbouring Mariners Cove, is in the mix.

But Dion Giannarelli has said he didn’t know the hotel was for sale.

“We just go in there for coffee meetings or lunch sometimes,” he said in July.

Rumours Hilton Worldwide was lining up to buy and rebrand it as a Waldorf Astoria were also quickly scotched.

The resort is currently owned by China’s Dong Run Group, which acquired the 200-room luxury hotel for $68.5m in 2012, through Nanbai Australia, a company set up by the group’s chairman Jing Lin Zuo.

The hotel’s striking foyer.

Insiders have estimated it could cost $58m to renovate the hotel, which has the expensive and laborious task of removing the bulk of fashion company’s intellectual property.

Thousands of Medusa tiles embedded in walls and floors of every room are to be removed while two custom-built Rolls-Royce Phantoms – valued over $1m each – will also be de-branded.