Sebel Harbourside Kiama sells for more than $10 million

The site – which includes the Blue Diamond Bar and Grill and 1871 restaurant – was acquired by an international hotel company for what’s believed to be a figure well above $10 million.

The deal included eight commercial strata lots for the food, beverage and conference business; the hotel management rights; One Fitness gym and 52 of the 88 strata titled serviced apartments.

Selling agent Matt Davidson of Tourism Property said that the deal was complicated by the properties complex ownership model.

“Sebel Kiama is an iconic property, but has an exceptionally complex operating structure – and we not only had three vendors, there were five inter-dependent contracts in total for the sale,” Mr Davidson said.

“The conference centre has a heritage listing (former Kiama Infants School) and there are three different owners corporations onsite, plus a number of committees and a long list of stakeholders. Not surprisingly it took many months of negotiating and navigating through a detailed due diligence process to get to this point.”

Mr Davidson said interest had been strong, from both domestic and offshore buyers.

“There was a very strong level of interest from both domestic and offshore investors which was very pleasing considering the scale and complexity of this deal,” Mr Davidson said.

“Kiama is considered accessible to Sydney and the hotel has long benefitted from the burgeoning Sydney population, particularly in the residential conference segment.”

“This was an extensive campaign that commenced back in February 2016 and we saw hundreds of interested parties.”

Mr Davidson said that immediate plans were to maintain the site as is and develop an ongoing refurbishment plan, while local zoning ensured the property would remain a hotel.

With Jack Needham

This story was originally published in the Kiama Independent.