Queensland motel collects $8m from Sentinel
Warren Ebert’s Sentinel Property Group has settled on Moranbah’s The Black Nugget for $8 million.
The 1.7 hectare property with five buildings includes a hotel with 40 electronic gambling machines and beer garden.
A hotel/motel complex with 27 rooms is subject to a 20 year triple net leaseback.
There is also a manager’s residence, dual line drive-through and walk-in bottle shop and function/conference hall.
The acquisition comes 18 months since Sentinel outlaid c$28m for the nearby Coles-anchored Moranbah Fair shopping centre, on a similar sized (1.68ha) block.
Coincidentally, The Black Nugget liquor licence includes a Moranbah Fair bottle shop.
Development upside outside
At 91 Mills Avenue, also with frontage to Batchelor Parade and Griffin Street, The Black Nugget will be the sixth asset in the Sentinel Northern Australia Investment Fund (SNAIF), which has been calling on investors since May.
As well as its development attributes, the holding offers development upside, with a vacant tract able to accommodate a large residential project (story continues below).
That land could also make way for a hotel extension, or alternative commercial product.
“The hotel investment market has been strong in the last 24 months underpinned by demand from the major retail groups, Woolworths and Coles, property trusts, syndicates and high net worth private investors,” Sentinel chief executive officer Mr Ebert said.
“This demand has been particularly evident in the sale of freehold investment hotels which have witnessed yield compression for strong lease covenants,” he added.
Moranbah is the biggest town in Queensland’s Isaac region, underpinned by mining and agriculture, according to the executive.
“The Isaac region generates output over $22 billion per annum with a Gross Regional Product per capita greater than six times that of Queensland…[with] median weekly incomes…56 per cent greater than Queensland’s”.
Pat O’Driscoll of the eponymous real estate agency marketed The Black Nugget.
SNAIF’s other assets are in Adelaide, Darwin and Mackay.
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