Pub baron snares Melbourne’s Royce Hotel for $55m
Prominent Melbourne hotelier and pub baron Mazen Tabet has agreed to terms to buy Melbourne’s luxury Royce Hotel in St Kilda in a deal worth about $55 million, even though market expectations for the boutique property were initially put at more than $60 million.
Tabet beat Hong Kong-based Ovolo Hotels to snare the 100-room Royce Hotel fronting 387 St Kilda Rd, which sports a 1920s art deco facade and was the site of the city’s first Rolls Royce car dealership.
The vendors are Melbourne-based private owners and hotel operators the Bursztyn family, who have been developing the hotel since 2000 from the old showroom site.
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Included in the deal is an office building on the 2164sqm site. Agents McVay Real Estate, who offered the hotel for sale via an international expressions-of-interest campaign, declined to comment.
Tabet, who sold Sydney’s Woolloomooloo Bay Hotel to Roy Medich for $15.5 million seven years ago, recently set up a holding company, Royce Hotel Business Pty Limited, registered to the hotel’s address on the leafy Melbourne boulevard, public records reveal.
The five-star hotel was offered with vacant possession and drew a host of bids from owner operators clamouring to get into the Victorian capital, where hotels are performing strongly.
The Royce Hotel has a series of high-profile food and beverage offerings, including dish restaurant and the Amberoom lounge bar. It also has conferencing and event facilities.
The adjoining office building has a net lettable area of 1125sqm and, long-term, there is development approval across both the hotel and office building sites, to add a further 67 hotel rooms, a larger ballroom, a rooftop gym and ground-floor retail. Tabet, who could not be reached for comment, has been trying to sell the Tankerville Arms Hotel in Fitzroy with market expectations of $20 million.
– with Ben Wilmot
This article originally appeared on www.theaustralian.com.au/property.
