Wealthy Grollo family buy Mt Hotham Airport, announce big plans

A wealthy Melbourne family have bought Mt Hotham airport in a move that could make a weekend at the snow cheaper for Victorians.

The airport includes two large dams that can support aerial waterbombing for bushfires.

Melbourne’s wealthy Grollo family have bought Mt Hotham airport in a more than $6m move that could make hitting the ski slopes cheaper for families within the next five years.

It could also have snowbunnies skyhopping between three of Victoria’s biggest alpine resorts.

Built in 2000 at a cost of about $17.5m, the Mt Hotham runway is Australia’s highest commercial airport — 1298m above sea level — located a short drive from both the Mt Hotham ski fields at nearby Dinner Plain alpine village.

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International ski resort group Vail Resorts previously owned the airport, but decided to sell the 105.36ha site, with a view to a more experienced developer turning some of the about 65ha of surplus land into a key worker and staff village to support ski resorts.

Grollo Group director Martin Ansell said the firm had bought the airport because “we like to buy different things and strange things” and confirmed they now owned about $8m worth of assets in the Mt Hotham and Dinner Plain area.

Mt Hotham Airport is Australia’s highest commercial runway.

They expect to spend the next 18 months planning and seeking approval for “environmentally and economically sustainable” keyworker accommodation on the site.

Mr Ansell added that with expectations more Australians would holiday at home as the cost of international travel rose, “everything is on the table” from “fixed wing to choppers” as they look at expanding the use of the airport.

The latter could open up connections to nearby Mt Buller, where the Grollo Group have significant interests including Buller Ski Lifts, the Mt Buller Chalet Hotel & Suites and ABOM Hotel.

They also have more than $100m in developments on Mt Buller and invested more than $20m in snow-making infrastructure on the mountain in the years ahead of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Rino Grollo bought his first properties on Mt Hotham in 2017, a pair of land parcels with scope for apartment development.

Charter flights and a handful of small airline runs have serviced the airport since 2000.

The Grollo Group also owns Melbourne’s Rialto Towers in partnership with a Kuwaiti government-backed firm St Martins Properties.

It is a separate entity from the Daniel Grollo led construction giant Grocon which avoided going into liquidation after administrators were appointed in 2020.

Mr Ansell added that the plans for keyworker accommodation at Mt Hotham Airport could provide a template for what they do around Mansfield and Mt Buller.

But the Hotham move will cost some staff a bed in the resorts, which Vail Resorts VP and Hotham general manager Nathan Butterworth said would be a challenge they needed to “carefully manage” at the Hotham Alpine Resort they still hold the lease for.

At present, there are an estimated 1500 staff beds in resorts between Dinner Plain and Hotham — and while some would be retained, the goal is to free up a significant portion of this space as lower-cost accommodation for visiting skiers.

Inside the airport

The summer sale for the 7799 Great Alpine Rd, Cobungra, property that includes an award-winning terminal, was finalised last week.

Castran real estate boss John Castran said the deal had been done at an undisclosed price that “well and truly” topped the $6m asking price.

He also confirmed that from the 118 inquiries about the site, the Grollo Group’s offer had been the highest and the firm had been best placed to develop the site.

A flight from Melbourne to Mt Hotham Airport takes about 30 minutes, while fly-in access to Australia’s biggest ski resort, Perisher Blue in NSW, is a similar distance by air. Flights to Sydney airfields take about an hour.

The Grollos are expected to investigate options to further develop the area around the airstrip.

The Hotham airport has a 1460m long airstrip that operators estimate could accommodate aircraft with as many as 70 seats, but also has scope for an up to 300m extension that could allow for larger flights.

Due to its location it is also set up to assist aerial bombardment of bushfires, and its altitude is such that it was used to train Australian military special forces for parachute insertion in elevated environments during operations in Afghanistan.

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