Who owns Geelong: The concrete kings investing heavily in the city
The Hamilton brothers are behind hughly successful redevelopments of the Federal Mills and Glasshouse. They are among the property kingpins shaping the city.
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Despite a global pandemic pulling the breaks on Geelong’s massive building boom, the city is continuing to grow with huge investments from the regions property kingpins.
The changing face of the city is being led by a swath of both big-money and small-scale investors, with the Geelong Advertiser looking into some of the big names leading the city’s revitalisation.
BILL VOTSARIS
When it comes to the CBD, Batman Management Group director Bill Votsaris is a key figure in the revitalisation of Little Malop St and other properties across central Geelong.
While his full investment portfolio might not be an open book, a search of publicly-available sources connects him to at least 30 CBD properties, including nine on Moorabool St and eight on Little Malop.
Walking down the ultra-popular west end of Little Malop St it’s hard to enter a venue that doesn’t have his fingerprints on it, with the concrete kingpin linked to venues like the West End, Cellar Door, Pistol Petes, Continental, Dribbles Burgers, Mavs and Coffee Cartel.
The Batman Group’s May purchase of the former Palace of the Orient and Pizzeria Adamo Yarra St sites helped him complete a quadrella of connected properties, with the group already owning the neighbouring VFA and former YMCA buildings.
Mr Votsaris isn’t afraid of snapping up major landmarks in the CBD either, including buying the former Geelong post office from the city with plans to spend $20m transforming the site into an accommodation and hospitality complex.
Mr Votsaris has also teamed up with fellow property kingpins the Hamilton Group to purchase the former Bright and Hitchcocks for a $5m transformation – including rooftop bar and almost 5000sq m of office spaces – as well as the former Thomas the Jewellers building earmarked for a three-level top floor hospitality venue above more office spaces.
Mr Votsaris did not respond to requests for comment.
THE HAMILTON BROTHERS
Cam and Andrew Hamilton are the third generation of their family to throw themselves into Geelong property investment.
The brothers head the Hamilton group, which currently lists 20 major properties under its banner, housing about 200 businesses, enterprises and organisations in more than 200,000sq m of space.
The brothers are the faces behind national award-winning projects like the Pivot City Innovation District – which includes the Federal Mills, Power Station and Glass House sites.
They’re also behind the Woolstores at the river-end of Pakington St, and the major Bright and Hitchcocks and Thomas the Jeweller overhauls in the CBD.
One of the latest projects the team has embarked upon is the overhaul of the former Regent Theatre site on little Malop St – which they describe as “a lost gem of central Geelong” – to offer a planned 2100sq m of office, hospitality or retail spaces.
The team also plans to breathe new life into the previously covered facade of the 99-year-old building to help it “reclaim its lost pride”.
When asked why the growth and success of Geelong was important to them, Cam Hamilton responded; “We believe in Geelong’s continuing success and this is reflected in our ongoing and increasing investment in the region. There has been no other better time to live and work in Geelong.”
LINO BISINELLA
Bisinella Developments has been run by its namesake family for more than 50 years, and has become one of the largest local residential and industrial developers in the City of Greater Geelong.
Current projects include the 520-lot Lara Lakes and 55-lot Flinders Walk estates in Lara, the 102-lot Wattle Grove Estate and 40ha Bisinella Industrial Estate in Corio, and the 230-lot Seaside Estate in St Leonards.
The massive amount of work currently under construction follows completion of numerous other estates in the region, including five in Lara and four on the Bellarine Peninsula.
Lino Bisinella arrived in Melbourne in 1954 as a 10-year-old, launched his own plastering business in 1965 and eventually bought 10-acres of land in Corio.
By the 1980s Mr Bisinella’s ever-growing business success led him to diversify into property development across Geelong to accommodate the city’s growing population – a population boom which only seemed to increase in the preceding decades.
MARK CASEY
Mark Casey is the man behind Casey Capital and the Director of Armstrong Creek’s Warralily development – earmarked to hold about 7000 lots by project’s end.
Casey got his hands on the future Warralily land prior to a series of government zoning changes which paved the way for the area to accommodate much of Geelong’s immediate residential growth – with space for about 65,000 new residents.
The Torquay businessman, who is the brother of former Richmond president Clinton Casey, also sold the land for the Armstrong Creek Town Centre to local developer Andrew Welsh.
The former sheep station between Geelong and Torquay was bought by Casey in a syndicate with Essendon’s recruitment manager, Adrian Dodoro, and former Geelong Football Club coach Mark Thompson for $3.8 million.
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