Publican beats developers for Engadine hotel, shops
A consortium comprising property investor Tony Denny, Peter Ashelford. David Stone and Gavin Duffy has sold the Engadine Tavern and neighbouring shops to Chris Feros for a speculated $35 million.
The deal for the 3604 square metre property comprising 36-50 Station Street and 1 Preston Avenue is a boon for the seller, which paid White & Partners $31.5m in 2021, then subdivided and sold off a car park with plans for a 64 unit apartment complex, The Heritage, construction of which is underway.
The Feros component still has development upside – able to accommodate another c55 dwellings in a high density building up to 20 metres tall.
The tavern was also marketed for its potential to be reduced so as to allow the improvements to accommodate a c2000 square metre showroom or supermarket.
HTL Property’s Dan Dragicevich, Sam Handy and Andrew Jolliffe were the agents.
“The campaign generated great interest from both hoteliers interested in reinvigorating the offering through to developers, land bankers and investors who were attracted to the site’s strategic land holding which offers flexible redevelopment and site amalgamation options,” Mr Dragicevich said.
“The combined properties provide various downside mitigators, strong underlying property fundamentals and the business, a well diversified mix of trade – essentially recession proof,” he added.
The Denny consortium listed the property mid last year with a different agency along with the Heathcote Hotel, in the next suburb south of Engadine; on 7200 square metres it came with plans for a mixed use project containing 130 apartments.
The two assets were expected to collect a total of c$85m (story continues below).
One to go…
White & Partners paid $22.3m for the Engadine pub, shops and former car park in 2018; the seller, the Liddy family, held it 39 years.
In the heart of town, near an Aldi, Coles, Dan Murphy’s and Woolworths, the hotel, on 1660 sqm, derives over $7m in annual revenue including from a gaming room with 26 electronic gambling machines with the scope to increase this to 30. It also holds a 1am liquor license and a large trading footprint with part of an upper level able to accommodate a beer garden.
The retail tenancies, meanwhile, covering 1900 sqm, return yearly net rent of c$165,000.
Elsewhere in the Sutherland region, Chris Feros’ Feros Hotel Group owns the Prince at Kirrawee, Highfields Hotel in Caringbah and the Taren Point Tavern. The group was also recently permitted to develop apartments as part of its Parc Pavilion project in Cronulla.
“We are extremely excited to take the reins at the Engadine Tavern, an asset and operation that fits our model perfectly,” Mr Feros said.
“We aim to continue to serve the local community within which we are already deeply entrenched,” he added.
Subscribe to our newsletter at the bottom of this page.
