Budget Noah's Backpackers in Bondi won't be a budget sell
Even projected onto the global property market, 2-12 Campbell Parade, Bondi Beach, is a major attention-grabber.
And when the bids made through the expressions-of-interest campaign are opened after it concludes at 4pm on May 5, the inscribed figures for one of the biggest holdings to come onto Sydney’s eastern-suburbs market for a decade will make for riveting reading.
How much will Noah’s world-famous backpacker hostel command? How much will a sizeable chunk of land with an elevated, unimpeded northerly outlook over that instantly identifiable crescent of golden sand turn out to be worth?
The co-agents aren’t saying. But they and everyone else in town know it will be a lot.
Daniel Marano of the Oxford Agency advises those local and international developers who are already jostling in the first weeks of the campaign to “put your strongest offer forward because something like this will not happen again”.
The pair of much-remodelled 1930s buildings has three street frontages, 260 bedrooms of various configurations, some pavement-level retail and a combined land holding of 1087 square metres.
Matt Pontey of Colliers says that, although a few backpacker enterprises have been on the phone, he surmises that a refurbished or replacement backpacker business will probably not be what happens to this incredible piece of real estate.
That’s because he confidently predicts “it will surpass the highest price paid on Campbell Parade in recent times – in the last five years – and that was $26 million for 134-138 Campbell Parade”.
“We’ve had local residential developers, hoteliers and those who are looking to do a mix of both,” he says. “We’ve had very high interest, not only from Sydney and interstate, but also internationally – from Singapore and all over the place. But whatever outcome on this corner, it will be of the greatest benefit to Bondi.”
Owned since the late 1990s by a family consortium who, after two years of watching the popular backpacker holding being buffeted by the cessation of the young international budget tourist trade – which was exacerbated when Noah’s itself was locked down due to COVID outbreaks – Pontey says “the very private family is now divesting”.
But even before the property came to market in late March, there had been a stream of potential redevelopers door-knocking the raffish old place with the super roof deck to express interest in purchasing such an incredible, if irregularly-shaped, site.
With no heritage listing, a demolition application was put before Waverley Council in 2009 and, apart from eliciting much local admonition that indicated the iconic address as a space that will be protectively watched over by its community, nothing came of those plans apart from establishing that any new project at the address will have a maximum height limit of 15 metres.
“The end buyer will be sympathetic to the character of Bondi because people are very nostalgic about it,” Pontey says.
With many weeks still to go in the campaign, the already busy agents anticipate a great deal of enquiry fielding and shepherding many parties through the site because “a lot of people will have to get their planners through the building to understand what they can and cannot do with it”.
The excitement level around “one of the most significant campaigns in the eastern suburbs for the last decade” will keep anticipation revving high, Pontey says. “It’s already one of the most talked-about listings we’ve ever had.”
