Time & Place bids $85m for 1960s Potts Point block The Chimes
Time & Place has made a play with the owners of 80 studio apartments and a car park, for a prime block in Sydney’s inner-east Potts Point.
The vendors of The Chimes complex at 45-53 MacLeay Street have until next month to accept.
It is understood the Melbourne based developer has offered about $85 million – with intentions of replacing it with a high-end apartment project.
The block comprises a 12-storey building developed in 1964 and a multi-level car park on one unit entitlement, famous in real estate pages recently for having bays sell at over $250,000.
All up The Chimes site spreads 1268 sqm on the south west corner of McDonald Street.
At the northern end of the tree-lined retail thoroughfare, upper levels capture views of the Sydney CBD, Harbour Bridge and Opera House about two kilometres away.
The complex replaced terraces, one fronting MacLeay Street also known as The Chimes, and another, Mayfair, on McDonald Street (a 1962 aerial image of them can be found at this City of Sydney website).
Prior to accepting Time & Place’s offer, it is understood owners would need to negotiate a distribution structure because at present all carry an equal liability on the building’s strata scheme (story continues below).
The Chimes has rang for Time & Place since last year
Time & Place founding director Tim Price said the group had its eye on The Chimes in Potts Point, an exclusive and cosmopolitan pocket of Sydney, for about a year.
With Jeff Xu’s Golden Age Group it made its first foray in the city in 2016 – at Waterloo, three kilometres south of the CBD.
Its portfolio was later expanded to include properties in Double Bay and Macquarie Park. At The Rocks, near Circular Quay, it is constructing a nine-storey complex with 58 dwellings branded The Harrington Collection.
The Chimes site would find favour following a high-end residential conversion with lower level retail.
Potts Point has greatly gentrified over the years – its record apartment price set at $15m in 2012 and broken twice, to sit at $16m, from 2018. Last March a unit in the suburb sold off-the-plan for $14.85m.
Time & Place is diversified, being involved in a luxury East Melbourne office proposal (again with Golden Age Group) which sold in February to Canada’s ARA Asset Management on a funds-through basis for $328m. It has also undertaken major industrial subdivisions in Melbourne’s north and west.
