Controversial hotel site sold as Hobart Not Highrise lends support to number of new projects
A Hobart CBD site which has been subject to a highly controversial hotel proposal in recent years has been quietly sold for an eye-watering sum to an unexpected local buyer. DETAILS >>
Tasmania
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THE local team behind a world-leading software program appears to have snapped up a prime Hobart CBD property which has previously been the subject of a highly controversial hotel proposal.
In May 2017, Singaporean company the Fragrance Group lodged development applications with the Hobart City Council for a 120m-high, 400-room hotel at 28 Davey St and a 75m-high, 495-room hotel at 2 Collins St — worth a combined $230m.
>> REVEALED: When Hobart’s new luxury hotel will open
The proposals were for the tallest buildings ever earmarked for Tasmania’s capital and provoked significant public opposition.
In March 2018, the Fragrance Group announced it had downsized the height of its Collins St hotel to 50m in response to feedback from the city’s residents, but it was refused by council.
Now, property records on the state government’s The List website show the Collins St property was sold by Fragrance in January for $9.57m to a company named Blackstone Industries Pty Ltd, with an address in Elizabeth St, Hobart.
As ASIC search reveals the current director of Blackstone Industries to be Alanna Cuda of Blackmans Bay, who co-founded Savage Interactive with her husband James Cuda.
Savage Interactive is the creator of Procreate, a world-leading illustration software program originally designed for iPad that has taken on Silicon Valley giants such as Adobe.
Users include artists at Disney, Mattel and Pixar.
Mr Cuda was contacted for comment.
Meanwhile, Hobart Not Highrise has expressed its support for a proposed $17m hotel development on Bathurst St.
A development application has been submitted to council by Circa Morris Nunn Architects, on behalf of the property owner Mao Ding, for a 68-room hotel, rooftop bar and restaurant.
“It’s located in a section of the city where a significant raising of the height limit was proposed, a fact ignored by the ‘build-anything-anywhere’ brigade in their opposition to Leigh Woolley’s report and the recommendations that sprang from it,” HNH president Brian Corr said.
“This development will provide reasonable transition from the CBD, on one side, to the commercial zone on the other, with plenty of development potential in the area.
“The new building will be prominent initially but, in time, other developments will be built up to the same height.”
Mr Corr said The Rox apartment complex on the corner of Elizabeth and Brisbane streets and the Murray St side of the Parliament Square redevelopment were also “examples of well-designed modern developments that suit the surrounding streetscapes.”
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