Blue Mountains: 'rare' opportunity to invest at the Three Sisters

Hospitality and retail centre The Lookout Echo Point is for sale with expectations of around $20 million.

As you’d expect, the 1783-square-metre Katoomba landholding boasts incredible views. It is just a stone’s throw from Echo Point lookout, the best place to view the unique rock formation, the Three Sisters.

The venue, at 333-37 Echo Point Road, is open anchor-tenanted by award-winning hospitality group Trippas White Group, which also runs food outlets at the Sydney Opera House and Taronga Zoo.

The Trippas White Group has leased the property until 2030. The hospitality component includes a restaurant, bar and takeaway food options. Tourist retailers AU-Range and Outback Opals and Gems are also in the centre, providing a “highly secure income stream” with a 4.84-year weighted average lease expiry (WALE), according to JLL listing agents David Mahood, Kate MacDonald and Sebastian Fahey.

The Lookout Echo Point is easily accessible by car, train, and bus, making the tourist hotspot a popular day trip from Sydney’s CBD, just 45 minutes’ drive away.

With its stunning bushwalks and pathways, the region attracts 4.3 million visitors each year and generates more than $915 million in tourism expenditure. 

The Blue Mountains is Sydney’s most popular natural tourist destination, but according to listing agents JLL, it is also home to more than 78,000 residents across 27 towns and villages and has a strong local economy.

The Lookout Echo Point’s hospitality venue is diverse, hosting weddings and corporate events with up to 600 guests. The restaurant seats 150 people and has indoor and outdoor function areas on the mezzanine level, offering 180-degree views of the Blue Mountains. Bar NSW, which offers light meals and drinks, occupies the ground floor, with seats inside for 50 guests and 100 on the bar terrace, with a takeaway food option known as the milk bar.

Kate MacDonald, senior vice president of hotels and hospitality at JLL, said the Trippas White Group managed award-winning venues in some of Sydney’s most prestigious locations over the past 30 years.

“The hospitality group manages an extensive portfolio of over 35 restaurants, bars, cafes and event spaces located across 19 venues,” she said. 

David Mahood, retail investments executive for NSW at JLL, said it would be “very rare” to see another destination come up like this.

“Icebergs in Bond would be another similar opportunity,” he said.

“It’s a once-in-a-generation opportunity. When you’re looking at purchasers for this asset, you’re generally looking at private investors or even owner-occupiers who want to acquire it and hold it for the long term.

Mahood described it as “a trophy asset in a trophy location” that might turn over every 20 or 30 years, adding that the campaign had started strongly.

“We’ve seen significant interest from local and offshore groups,” he said.

“A venue like this, which is 100 metres from the Three Sisters, you just look at the Blue Mountains being a world-heritage destination … and the most desired natural destination for tourists in Sydney,” he said.

“Combined with the centre’s secure income stream and being the predominant retail and hospitality offering in Echo Point, The Lookout Echo Point creates an investment opportunity that is unlikely to be replicated.”

The Three Sisters, which play an important role in First Nations culture, were formed by land erosion around 200 million years ago during the Triassic period.

Meanwhile, if the price tag is too high, another nearby redevelopment investment opportunity in Katoomba at 171-175 Katoomba Street is up for grabs.

The two-storey brick building with an iron roof on a 490-square-metre block is poised for revival, with double-fronted retail space and an upstairs residence.

Constructed in 1923, it needs restoration upstairs. Development approval has been obtained for two three-bedroom apartments, with further options to operate retail and residences at the rear of the block.