Crown and Meriton in multi-million-dollar deals
Crown Resorts looks set to pay $80 million for a development site on which it once planned to build Australia’s tallest tower.
The property group already owns a half share in the Southbank One Queensbridge site opposite Crown’s Melbourne casino and will buy out developer Schiavello Group’s remaining 50 percent stake.
Controversial plans to build a $1.75 billion hotel and apartment complex, slated to be Australia’s tallest building at 323 metres, were shelved in March after the Victorian government refused to extend a development permit for the site.
The proposal from Crown Resorts and the Schiavello Group involved 388 hotel rooms and 708 apartments in a 90-storey building reaching 323 metres – outstripping Australia’s tallest building, Q1 at Surfers Paradise.
Crown was granted approval in 2017 for 388 hotel rooms and 708 apartments in a 90-metre tower which exceeded Victorian planning limits, state premier Daniel Andrews arguing the development was of “state significance”.
But the project failed to attract financial backing in the climate of a declining luxury unit market, a softening of room rates driven by new hotel openings, a lending clampdown by banks and a decline in Chinese buyer interest.
The casino group is now reportedly looking at new hotel plans it says will deliver “significant economic and tourism benefits to Victoria”.
The $80 million buyout will also include all pre-development assets, including intellectual property and designs for the project.
Meriton’s Mascot
Harry Triguboff’s Meriton group has bought a $25 million development site with approval for 110 apartments in Mascot – it’s eighth build in the Sydney airport suburb since 2015.
Meriton, which describes itself as the dominant developer in the city’s inner south, is close to completion on the 111-apartment Escada development in Haran Street. Two 13-storey buildings comprising 305 apartments at 256 Coward Street are also under construction and due for completion in 2020.
The group, owned by Australia’s richest accom developer, has announced a series of acquisitions and builds in recent weeks, pushing into states outside of QLD and NSW for the first time in its 56-year history.
The Gardeners Road site represents a return to business as usual – and has been described by Triguboff as a “restock of the site cupboard”.
“We’ve done an immense amount of development at Mascot in the past four or five years – the suburb’s become not only a Meriton favourite but a favourite with buyers,” The Urban Developer reports him saying.
“So much so that we don’t have a lot to offer buyers.”
The new 3605sqm Mascot Gardner site is currently home to warehouses and office buildings.
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