George Street blocks in Sydney sold for $94 million
Long-term private owners have sold the prime commercial buildings at 630-634 and 636-638 George Street in the southern end of the Sydney CBD for $94 million.
Private Singaporean investors bought the properties in an off-market sale with plans to hold the buildings before developing the sites into mixed-use projects, likely to be a combination of hotels and apartments.
Together the two sites make up about 1000 square metres and the current zoning on the site allows new developments up to a height of 230 metres.
The buildings, opposite Event Cinemas, have not traded for more than 30 years.
Knight Frank’s Dominic Ong and Colliers International’s Steam Leung brokered the sale.
The hotel and apartment mixed-use style of development is flourishing in the southern end of the CBD.
In January, private developers submitted a development application to convert the site of the infamous Irish pub Scruffy Murphy’s into a new 40-storey hotel and residential tower with retail shop, two blocks away. That combined 1225sq m site could likely yield 240 hotel rooms and apartments.
A short distance away Chinese-backed developer Shokai Ausbao is building another hotel/apartment tower, the Crowne Plaza hotel at 60 Bathurst Street.
A few more blocks away at Pitt, Castlereagh and Liverpool Streets, China’s Han’s Group is going ahead with its $1.5 billion hotel, apartment and commercial mixed-use development. Seven hundred apartments are expected.
Also in the southern end of the CBD, Chinese-backed private equity group Shanghai United is on track to build its M Gallery by Sofitel hotel and apartment project, Castle Residences at Bathurst and Castlereagh Streets.
The lack of hotel rooms in the Sydney CBD and a growing number of residential owner occupiers looking for luxury apartments with hotel-style amenities have given rise to the growth of such projects.
