Crowdfunding aims to raise $3 million towards buying the Tote

A crowdfunding campaign aims to raise $3 million towards the purchase price of Collingwood’s Tote Hotel, to preserve its status as one of Melbourne’s most celebrated live music venues.

The Tote was put up for sale with local agents Miglic Dean last week with a price tag of $6 million to $6.6 million.

One of the city’s best-known live music venues since the early 1980s, The Tote – formerly the Ivanhoe Hotel – is on a 665 square metre block on the corner of Wellington and Johnston streets.

Tote Hotel co-owner Jon Perring outside the legendary Collingwood live music venue.Credit: Paul Jeffers

North Melbourne’s The Last Chance Rock & Roll Bar is running a Pozible crowdfunding campaign. If successful in reaching its $3 million target, it is understood private investors would stump up the remaining $3-plus million to purchase The Tote. So far, the campaign has attracted pledges of about $50,000.

The pub is being sold with vacant possession. Owners Jon Perring and Sam Crupi said they had run out of the energy required to run the 42-year-old venue. The pair picked up the leasehold in 2010 after the pub almost closed due to onerous security requirements. Records show they bought the freehold from Chris Morris’ Colonial Leisure Group one year later for $1 million.

A lot has changed in Collingwood since then, with office and apartment towers gentrifying the once working-class industrial suburb.

Pubs have been selling at a significant premium in the past couple of years. Both factors mean there is plenty of angst among The Tote’s regulars, who fear they might lose the music venue to a hotel business development, or an apartment block.

Last year, there was alarm when Singapore-based investor YY Property paid $5.08 million for the Curtin Hotel in Carlton, opposite Trades Hall, with expectations that apartments would replace the pub.

However, YY Property renewed the lease of the rock venue operators.

CBD offices on block

Several CBD offices belonging to the founders of ill-fated co-working hubs operator Victory Office are on the market.

One of six properties owned by Dan Baxter in Victory Tower, at 420 Collins Street, and three boutique offices owned by Manisha Baxter, in 530 Little Collins Street, are for mortgagee sale through Gross Waddell ICR agents Richard Lowe and Alex Ham.

The Baxters owned a majority stake in Victory Office, a company they established in 2013 and listed on the ASX in 2019 at $2 a share. Co-working businesses generally lease office space, which is then sublet to individual users or companies.

Victory Office went into voluntary administration in November as rising costs, competition, COVID-19 lockdowns and disputes with landlords – including AMP Capital, Investa, Mirvac, Dexus and Zig Inge – eroded cash flow and the ability to pay rent.

Now, some of the Baxter couple’s assets are for sale. Dan Baxter owns levels two, six and nine of 420 Collins Street, as well as the basement and units on the ground and first floors, through a series of investment companies.

First off the sale block is the 393 square metre entire floor on level six, which is fully leased to Orange International College until May 2028. The 12-storey 4383 sq m tower was strata titled in the 1980s. The mortgagee auction is set for April 5, with a price in the high $2 million range expected.

The boutique offices in Exchange Tower, which are owned by Manisha Baxter, are for private sale and expected to fetch in the high $100,000s.

All the properties were purchased between 2009 and 2017, with mortgages held by a series of different lenders.

Richmond development

Michael Spektor’s National Retail Group has snapped up a development site in the Richmond commercial precinct near the river.

The 916 square metre vacant lot at 109 Palmer Street changed hands for $5.9 million – a land rate of $6441 a sq m – in a deal brokered by Colliers agents Ben Baines and Ted Dwyer.

Baines said there was plenty of interest in the property, especially from land bankers and developers keen to get a foothold in the growing fringe office precinct.

Salta’s Victoria Gardens is north of the site and a host of other developers – including MAB, Gurner and Manor Property Group – are all building in the area.

The deal gives Spektor plenty of room to manoeuvre. His property group is now part-owned by the directors and shareholders of discount retail chain Chemist Warehouse.

Records show that Chemist Warehouse owners Jack Gance and Mario Verrocchi, and other directors of the company, also own a small office building next door on 830 sq m of land at 107 Palmer Street. That two-storey building was purchased in 2016 for $4.05 million and houses Stratosphere Media, an advertising agency bought by Chemist Warehouse in 2021.

The Chemist Warehouse principals, who also bought a former NAB branch building on Bridge Road in 2021 for $8.3 million, now control a 1746 sq m parcel of land on Murphy Street.

The company’s directors are also eager buyers of retail strip properties, especially chemist shops.

Aged care deal

The aged care sector has kicked off the year with a big $25 million deal in New Gisborne, on the western metropolitan fringe.

South Australian operator Warrina Aged Care offloaded both the freehold and business of the 79-bed facility at 176 Station Road.

The property, which underwent a 33-bed extension and common area upgrade in 2020, adjoins a 10-unit retirement village. It is also undergoing an extension and will be retained.

The buyer and new operator of the aged care section, which is on 7000 sq m, is privately held Victorian firm Maiestas Care. CBRE’s Marcello Caspani-Muto, Sandro Peluso and Jimmy Tat negotiated the off-market deal.

Caspani-Muto said building costs were a significant factor in the price.

“Construction costs for aged care are now between $300,000 and $450,000 per bed, which makes the property alone worth about $21 million. That’s why we have been seeing vacant facilities selling and being renovated and refurbished,” he said.

Three buildings on Russell Street held in the same family for 81 years are expected to fetch more than $12 million.

Generational transition

Three buildings on Russell Street held in the same family for 81 years are on the market and expected to fetch more than $12 million.

The properties – at 248-258 Russell Street – were purchased by Fred Watkins in 1942 and handed down through generations of the family.

JLL agents Nick Peden, Josh Rutman and MingXuan Li are marketing the 347 square metre landholding, which is close to a swath of new developments, including Charter Hall’s 110,000 sq m three towers at Wesley Place and Iglu’s 28-level student accommodation tower.

Last October, the nearby 272-282 Lonsdale Street sold for $32.6 million, or $79,000 a sq m.

Peden said the property could return about $515,000 a year in rent, should any potential developer or investor plan to hold the property.

248-258 Russell is not the only long-held property on the market. Conquest Commercial is selling a former NAB bank branch at 103-105 Koornang Road in suburban Carnegie for more than $2.9 million. It has been owned by the same family for more than a century.

NAB moved out of the property two years ago, with 18 months left on its lease.

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