Glenn Piper buys the Commodore
Glenn Piper has quietly added McMahons Point’s Commodore Hotel to his fast-growing portfolio.
The real estate agent and developer turned publican is speculated to be paying $29 million for the double storey venue at 206 Blues Point Road, on the south west corner of Union Street, following an off-market deal.
The vendor was John Azar’s The Good Beer Company, which paid $18.5m in 2019.
That seller was Graham Campion, who picked it up three years earlier from Lantern Hotels for $14.5m.
The latest deal comes three months since we reported movie director Doug Mitchell and chef Rick Stein were part of a syndicate speculated to be outlaying over $125m for Neutral Bay’s The Oaks.
Commodore Hotel
Covering 1138 square metres, the Blues Point Rd site was in 2016 marketed for its development upside, able to accommodate commercial or residential product.
The modernised building was developed in the 1970s in place of a double storey one completed in c1901.
For more than 50 years before that, the site accommodated a three level pub known as The Old Commodore.
It was that venue where poet Henry Lawson was said to have been a regular.
JLL’s Ben McDonald, John Musca and Kate MacDonald brokered the sale to Glenn Piper, who only started investing in the sector in 2020 (story continues below).
Mr Azar retains a significant pub portfolio including the nearby Union Hotel, in North Sydney, which he acquired from the Gallagher family for $20m in 2021.
Piper portfolio grows
The Commodore Hotel includes a bar, bistro and bottle shop.
Mr Azar offered it permit-ready for an extension to the gaming room.
In 2021, the executive also won permission to trade an hour longer on a terrace between Monday and Thursday and two hours more on Fridays and Saturdays, and to increase the number of electronic gambling machines from 17 to 30.
For Mr Piper, the acquisition comes a year since he outlaid $40m for Newcastle’s Merewether Beach Hotel, on behalf of a syndicate.
That property is presently being renovated.
The executive also owns Manly’s Q Station, the Harbord Hotel at Freshwater and Hook Island Lodge.
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