Development threat looms over historic Chapel Street pub

The future of another cherished old Melbourne pub could be placed in the hands of developers next week, as South Yarra’s Imperial Hotel goes to auction next Friday.

Operator Australian Venue Co is now on a month-by-month lease at 518-522 Chapel Street, which could make the property a development play. The Imperial is down the road from the massive Jam Factory project proposed by Gurner and Qualitas. Records show the vendors bought the hotel in 1981, when Chapel Street was a pumping entertainment strip. It was built in 1876 to a design by architect Joseph Crook.

While there will be plenty of punters living in the nearby towers looking for a local watering hole, it’s understood the Imperial is in need of renovation. It’s on a 600 square metre site with three street frontages. Teska Carson agents Matthew Feld, Luke Bisset and Larry Takis are handling the sale.

There is also a clutch of hotels for sale across the river. The Rochester Castle Hotel, rebadged The Rochey, will go under the hammer at Burgess Rawson’s next portfolio auction on December 11. Happily, that busy hotel, built in 1852, has a fresh five-year lease (paying $180,872 a year) with four five-year options.

The Rochester Castle on Johnston Street, Fitzroy is going to auction.

Burgess Rawson’s Jamie Perlinger and Romanor Falconer are handling enquiries and expect it to fetch about $3.5 million. The Castle Group, which runs other venues in Carlton and Fitzroy, recently took over the pub, which now offers a revamped menu and electronic music.

Sticking with rock ’n’ roll, the Beast in East Brunswick is also up for auction, with a new 10-year lease underpinning its attractions. Fitzroys’ Chris Kombi and Ervin Niyaz are handling the December 5 auction and expect around $3.5 million for the bar at 78-80 Lygon Street. The 620 sq m bar comprises two double-storey shops on one title, paying $185,657 a year in rent.

The Beast at 80 Lygon Street, East Brunswick.

Earlier in the year, Fitzroys sold 98-100 Lygon Street, home to Maggie’s Snacks & Liquor, for $3.38 million, on a 4.7 per cent yield.

And up the road, the East Brunswick Hotel, which also once hosted live music, is for sale through JLL’s Will Connolly and Lachlan Persley with Anthony Stevens Real Estate. After the three-storey hotel was redeveloped into apartments in 2012, the pub was retained and in 2018 its 12 upstairs rooms were renovated into a boutique hotel. It’s being sold as a going concern by its owner-operators and is expected to fetch about $6 million.

Bottle shop

Booze retailer and pub operator Endeavour issued a grim profit warning this week amid an ABS-reported decline in liquor sales nationwide.

Dan Murphy’s at 322-328 Bay Road, Cheltenham, is for sale.

Endeavour’s bottle shops, Dan Murphy’s and BWS, however, managed to achieve 1.1 per cent growth, which helps explain investors’ enthusiasm for their freeholds. A 12-month-old Dan Murphy’s at 288-292 Whitehorse Road, Balwyn is understood to have sold for between $11 million and $12 million last week with a yield well below 5 per cent.

Bought by a local investor, the price sets a $16,000 per square metre record for the blue-chip strip. The 478 sq m shop, a former ANZ branch, is on a 687 sq m piece of land. In late 2021, the Balwyn Woolworths across the street, on a 4700 sq m parcel of land, fetched $45.7 million, or $9723 a sq m.

Endeavour’s fresh 10-year lease has options out to 2047 and pays $537,728 a year with CPI increases. The deal was done by Stonebridge agents Rorey James and Kevin Tong, with Gorman Commercial

The next Dan Murphy’s to hit the market is a five-year-old outlet at Brix Property’s Cheltenham Quarter on Bay Road. Brix has it valued at $15 million on its website, so the asking price is likely to be around that trading point. JLL’s Tom Noonan, Stuart Taylor, Jarrod Herscu and MingXuan Li and Gorman Commercial’s Tom Maule and Jonathon McCormack have the listing. It has a 10-year lease to Dan Murphy’s with options to 2079 and pays $666,760 a year.

Salta sells

Property group Salta has sold a riverside site in Burnley to Singapore-based self-storage group StorHub for $20.5 million. The self-storage giant will redevelop the low-rise warehouse at 173-177 Barkly Avenue into a new facility. Salta paid $14.75 million for the 3015 sq m site in 2019 and obtained a permit for a seven-storey office building. The building has been occupied for many years by bathroom and kitchen fixtures supplier Rogerseller, which is now owned by Winning Appliances.

173-177 Barkley Avenue, Burnley, will be redeveloped into a self-storage facility.

StorHub arrived with a bang in Australia this year and now has 11 self-storage buildings, four of which are already operating. Last week it paid $110 million for three sites in Sydney and in July, it paid $8.2 million for 316 Governor Road, Braeside. Colliers agents Ben Baines, Rob Joyes, and Alex Browne handled the off-market sales process.

Salta has been on a selling spree this year, raising capital to fund its ambitious $3 billion build-to-rent program. Last month it opened its first BTR apartment project, Fitzroy & Co, on Queens Parade, North Fitzroy.

Jooce it

The Singaporean owners of the old Jooce nightclub in Ringwood have found a buyer for their Maroondah Highway showrooms. A Chinese-backed developer has splashed out $18.88 million on the 7015 sq m site – not a bad return on Staley Properties’ $13.5 million purchase in 2020.

The building at 93-97 Maroondah Highway, on the corner of Market Street, is currently occupied by gym operator Genesis and clothes retailer Rivers, whose parent company, Mosaic Brands, went into voluntary administration last month. They pay a tidy $666,948 a year in rent, giving the deal a sharp 3.5 per cent yield.

The rear of 93 Maroondah Highway, Ringwood, occupied by Genesis Health and Fitness.

Staley Properties is owned by Singaporean conglomerate Sin Heng Chan Holdings, which developed the Nest building in Doncaster and has other global operations. The building, which sits in front of the car park attached to Ringwood Square shopping centre, comes with a permit for 277 units in two towers. Savills agents Julian Heatherich, Benson Zhou and James Latos did the deal.

Ringwood’s CBD has been earmarked as a key activity centre under the Allen government’s new housing plan, which could allow for 20-storey high-rise towers in the precinct between the Ringwood Bypass and the highway.

Around the corner, an office at 41-43 Ringwood Street is for sale for the first time in 27 years. The two-storey building, built during that architectural nadir of the late 1980s-early 1990s, is leased to Victoria Police and the Electoral Commission.

41-43 Ringwood Street, Ringwood.

The 1921 sq m building is on a 1624 sq m site opposite QIC’s Eastland shopping centre. It’s in a zone that allows for an eight-storey project. Colliers’ Ben Baines, Alex Browne and Eddie Foulkes are running the campaign and expect it to sell for about $7 million.

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