Capital Gain

The Royal Hotel in Clifton Hill is on the market for the first time in four decades and nearly 10 years since the front bar was open. The move comes three years after its owners, the Gudic family, lost their bid to build a five-storey apartment project over the historic corner hotel.

Built in 1889, the three-storey hotel at 35-41 Spensley Street is on a 736-square-metre corner site in the heart of the Clifton Hill village and includes 29 rented rooms on the top floors.

A gin distillery currently occupies some of the space and operates the bottleshop, but the pub is ripe for a new publican prepared to revamp the historic site.

Neighbours were outraged in 2019 when the Gudics lodged a bid for a residential project above the once-loved but shuttered pub in the enclave east of Hoddle Street. Colliers agents Ben Baines and Lucas Soccio are running the September 10 auction campaign and expect a price in the mid-$5 million range.

“There’s nothing better than a corner hotel in a village setting,” Baines said.

Records show the Gudic family bought the pub in 1985 from Carlton & United Breweries with “5000 class 52 redeemable preference shares”.

If that sounds like a complex way to buy a pub, it’s worth remembering CUB was taken over by Elders IXL in 1983 during the heady “corporate raider” period of management heralded by the late John Elliot.

Stingo

Down Hoddle Street into Collingwood, investor Joe Awad has snapped up the Yorkshire Stingo Hotel for $2.5 million, a deal which reflects a skinny 3.82 per cent yield. The City East Motel behind it fetched $3.5 million. It’s not quite the total $8 million result that was hoped for the two properties.

The pub, at 40-48 Hoddle Street, and the motel, at 181 Langridge Street, were bought by the Freeman family in 1988 for $130,000.

Both properties cover 1136 square metres of land and were earmarked for a development along with another 1121 square metres at the rear. Those three warehouses, at 197-203 Landgridge Street, were owned by Munro Shoes – one of the last remaining shoe manufacturers in Abbotsford – and sold for $3 million. Stonebridge’s Max Warren, Dylan Kilner, Nic Hage and Chao Zhang handled negotiations.

Chinatown

Last month’s hot auction in Chinatown, where 172-176 Little Bourke Street sold for $6.11 million, has inspired a clutch of owners to test the market with their own long-held properties.

First up is 179 Russell Street, which is going to auction on August 26. The 180-square-metre two-level building is on a 102-square-metre piece of the city and is expected to fetch more than $3 million. It’s got a new lease and fitout to Jin Noodle Restaurant, which pays $165,000 a year in rent.

Records show it last sold in 1994 for $1.05 million. Savills agents Julian Heatherich and Tom O’Halloran, with the Di Petta Group’s Winnie Chow, are running the auction campaign.

On August 27, the loveliest of the lot, 107 Little Bourke Street goes under the hammer.

Designed by one of Melbourne’s best architects, Nahum Barnett, in 1903, the three-storey building last changed hands in 1970 for $27,000. It’s on a 99-square-metre parcel of land and rented to Khao Soi Melbourne.

Lemon Baxter’s Hans Fan expects it to sell for about $4.8 million, which equates to a yield of 4.1 per cent.

Next month, 218-220 Little Bourke Street will be up for auction after 70 years in the one family’s hands. The double-storey shop of 325 square metres is expected to sell for about $4 million on September 3.

The building has a 10-year lease, with a 10-year option to the Lost Bar, which pays just under $180,000 a year in rent. Records show a quarter-share in the building last changed hands in 2004 for $500,000 and in 1970, a half-stake was transferred for $32,000.

Fitzroys’ Lewis Waddell, Ben Liu and David Bourke are running the auction.

According to Fitzroys’ latest Walk the CBD report, Chinatown vacancies nearly halved in the past year to 3.5 per cent from 6.6 per cent.

There are a clutch of cafes and restaurants for sale along the west end too but not at auction.

Brendan Sullivan is selling the freehold of the long-running Grain Store restaurant at 517 Flinders Lane.

Sullivan has been progressively selling the office and retail complex on Flinders Lane, which he bought in 2011 from the Smorgon family for $16.35 million.

CBRE’s Alex Brierley, Nathan Mufale and Jing Jun Heng have the listing and expect about $3 million. At 540 Little Collins Street, the freehold of the Five Points bagel outlet is also for sale and expected to sell for about $1 million through Fitzroys’ Waddell and Liu.

Lemon Baxter’s Fans and Paul O’Sullivan are also selling the Jumbo Kebabs freehold at 200 Spencer Street, opposite Southern Cross Station. It has a $1.95 million price tag.

Sculptor

The North Melbourne laneway studio of the renowned late sculptor Erwin Fabian is up for sale. Fabian, born in Berlin in 1915, travelled to Australia in the 1940s on the ship the Dunera after escaping Nazi Germany in 1938.

He joined the Australian Army’s education unit during World War II before returning to London for 12 years. He came back to Australia as a sculptor working with found pieces of metal.

Fabian, whose work was described as “conceptual illusionism” by art professor Sasha Grishin, died in 2020.

The studio of 117 square metres is off Arden Street at 3-5 Wylies Lane, in the central pocket between Curzon and Errol streets. It’s on 152 square metres of land and goes to auction on August 27.

Simpsons agents Richard Simpson and Ariana McCarron expect between $900,000 and $990,000 for the property. “Artwork not included” is the disappointing postscript to the Simpsons ad.

Armadale redux

Armadale’s blue-chip High Street has another large property up for sale, a 1990s office building halfway between Glenferrie and Kooyong roads.

Records show the vendors of 1113-1121 High Street paid $3.45 million in 1996 and are looking at a payday of about $13.5 million.

The 1589-square-metre building has five shops at street level, four offices upstairs and 61 car spaces. It’s on a large site of 1363 square metres. It has three agents on the case: Cushman & Wakefield’s Oliver Hay, Maker Property’s George Davies and Gross Waddell ICR’s Alex Ham.

Last week, 935-951 High Street, on 1373 square metres, hit the market with a price tag of about $15.5 million and a permit for an apartment project.

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