Pro-invest spends $72m on Flinders Lane
Pro-invest has acquired a prominent hotel diagonally adjacent to Southern Cross station.
The Sydney based investment house is paying $72 million for 561-585 Flinders Lane, at the south east corner of Spencer Street, following an off-market deal.
The price is a boon for the seller, Priscilla David Limited, led by Philip Carter, once Christchurch’s richest man, which picked up the nine level, 209-room guesthouse from Singapore’s listed Lasseters International Holdings in mid-2013 for $47.3m.
Until recently the property operated as a Holiday Inn – an IHG Hotels & Resorts brand.
Following a refurbishment, it will reopen as a Hotel Indigo, a boutique marque also controlled by IHG, with venues at the Adelaide Market (23-29 Market St) – its maiden in Australia, opened two years ago this week – and in Brisbane at 27-35 Turbot St, another asset owned by Pro-invest.
Also in 2021, IHG pre-committed to a 168-key guesthouse of this type as part of the revamp of the City Tattersalls Club, in Sydney’s Pitt St, which ICD and First Sponsor last month appointed Richard Crookes Constructions to build.
Another Hotel Indigo for Melbourne
IHG operates 135 Hotel Indigos with plans for over 120 more (story continues below).
In Melbourne, this includes a 181-suite guesthouse under construction as part of a revamp of the Walk Arcade, between the Bourke Street Mall and Little Collins St.
Last week, the hospitality giant, for the brand, announced a 200-key resort at Palau, its third in the Micronesia region.
It also plans to open a Hotel Indigo in Auckland and Tokyo this year.
The Flinders Ln property abuts a 15 month old, 25-storey, 278-suite guesthouse at 9-27 Downie St, owned by ex-Toll chief executive Paul Little and operating as a Hyatt Centric.
Also in the vicinity is a Vibe Hotel which replaced the airspace of a historic Fletcher Jones store at 1-5 Queen St, on the north west corner of Flinders.
Developed by Caydon, that property sold in 2020 for $108m to Sino Pacific Trading Company Limited, controlled by Thailand’s Savetsomphob family.
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