Daisho settles $220m purchase of Collins Arch’s W Hotel
Daisho has settled on the $220 million purchase of the hotel component within Cbus Property and Industry Superannuation Property Trust’s Collins Arch.
The property sale was announced in late 2016.
At the same time, Marriott International confirmed it as Melbourne’s first W Hotel (the country’s maiden inn opened in Brisbane two years ago).
The complex, with an address of 408 Flinders Lane spreads 27,849 square metres and will be rated five-star when it opens in December.
Configured with 294 suites, the 20-level complex is at the north west corner of Market Street.
It forms part of the $1.25 billion Collins Arch – occupying a prominent block opposite the historic and low-rise Port Authority Building, Swann House and Immigration Museum.
Rising 47 levels and also containing 184 apartments and 49,000 sqm of office space, the Cbus and ISPT project is walking distance to, and overlooks, the Yarra River and Crown Casino.
New future for historic Melbourne site
Between 1965-2015, this land, with four street frontages, accommodated the National Mutual Life Association Building, also later known as the AXA Building and Suncorp’s headquarters (story continues below).
The brutalist tower (pictured, right) rose behind a large large forecourt fronting Collins St.
The entire holding was fenced off from the public since 2012, when marble parts of the structure started falling onto the street.
For 90 years from the mid-1850s, the property was Melbourne’s Western Market – and the reason Market St has its name.
Savills chief executive officer Paul Craig brokered the hotel sale to Daisho, which is based in Japan but has a local office, in Brisbane.
The agency’s national head, Capital Transactions, Ian Hetherington, said the Collins Arch facility “will supersede every other hotel in town, if not the country”.
Given its arch-shape, and footprint, the new 447 Collins Street has earned the nickname ‘pantscraper’.
Cbus is presently tussling with Mirvac for the right to replace a 1.4 hectare site at the south east tip of the city, overlooking both Federation Square and Treasury Gardens, which state government development arm VicTrack listed last year.
Marketed by Colliers International as Treasury Square, this parcel is earmarked for at least three major c20-storey buildings – with apartments, hotels and offices, potential development outcomes.
