Source : THE AGE NEWS
Capital Gain
A former bank branch in the heart of Bondi’s beach precinct, once owned by John and Merivale Hemmes, is on the market with a price tag of more than $25 million.
The property, at 96 Campbell Parade, is directly opposite the famous beach and is likely to get developers or wealthy private investors salivating.
Originally leased to the Commonwealth Bank, the 430-square metre site has a ground-floor shop and six apartments above.
The building’s prominence and location are likely to make it a prime target for redevelopment, helped by having a Waverley Council development approval for a 22-room hotel sporting a 15-metre height limit.
The site was once owned by John Hemmes, the father of pub billionaire Justin Hemmes, who offloaded it in 2012 for $7.8 million to its current owner, a private company called 7TH Wave owned by George and Christine Penklis, property records show.
Sales agents, Cushman & Wakefield’s Miron Solomons and Matt Pontey, said the property is one of the last freehold commercial sites available among the famous stretch of shops along the beachfront.
John Hemmes, who died in 2015, created the Merivale business, which he named after his wife. Justin built the business into a billion-dollar empire spanning a portfolio of pubs and entertainment venues in NSW, Victoria and, more recently, Byron Bay.
Quay car park
Wingate, a part of Singaporean real estate investment group CapitaLand, is looking to raise more than $60 million from the sale of its Quay West Car Park in The Rocks.
The 598-space parking facility at 109-111 Harrington Street is in the northern core office district of Sydney’s CBD and close to office towers, including Grosvenor Place, Salesforce Tower, the EY Centre and Gateway Sydney.
Quay West car park was built in 1991 as part of ASX-listed Mirvac’s development of the Quay West Apartments tower in The Rocks.
It has a long-term lease from the former Sydney Harbour Foreshore Authority, which now operates under the umbrella of state government landlord Placemaking NSW.
Wingate bought the leasehold from Mirvac in 2022 for $52 million.
The nine-level basement car park is operated by Australia’s largest car park operator, Wilson Parking, with a weighted average lease expiry of nine years.
Car parks are the hottest ticket in town since the City of Sydney introduced planning restrictions on the number of car spaces allowed in new office and apartment developments.
Available parking fell from 0.21 spaces per employee in 2014 to 0.14 spaces in 2023, according to the NRMA. Sam McVay of McVay Real Estate is handling the sale.
Sizzlingly small
A small, but hugely popular restaurant, Chinatown Sizzling House, at 8 Quay Street is expected to be snapped up for an asking price of about $2 million.
The Haymarket venue is being sold for the first time since 1988 by private investor Pui Yee Bicky Chan. There are two years remaining on the lease plus a three-year option.
Although small in stature, with just 44 square metres of internal area, it generates net income of $109,799.54 a year with fixed 4 per cent yearly increases.
Willem Watson from JLL and Andre Pang from Service First Property Group are advising on the sale.
From ABC to data hub
The ABC’s former television site at Artarmon on Sydney’s lower north shore, once a high-tech studio, is being redeveloped into a large-scale data centre by ASX-listed property giant Goodman, now one of the world’s largest owners of data centres.
Demand for data storage is huge as AI growth accelerates.
Goodman bought the former headquarters of the ABC at 2-8 Lanceley Place and 14 Campbell Street in Artarmon in July 2022 for $94.87 million. The headquarters, which included the broadcaster’s main transmission tower, was opened by then-prime minister Robert Menzies on November 5, 1956, ahead of the ABC’s first television broadcast from the building that same day.
The national broadcaster’s lease of the 1.4-hectare site ended in 2021.
Known as SYD01 data centre at Artarmon, the 90-megawatt site is Goodman’s first fully fitted and operated data centre in Australia and will be delivered across five stages. The first phase is due to be ready for service in early 2028.
carolynannecummins@gmail.com
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