Virtical snares hotel in ‘the Mayfair of Sydney’
Diversified developer and investor, Virtical, has bought its second east coast hospitality asset this year.
Led by Mark Toma, the Sydney CBD based group stayed local, paying c$40 million for the c1865 Republic Hotel, at 69-73 Pitt Street, on the south west corner of Bridge, opposite the Australian Stock Exchange.
Also opposite the stock exchange, the four floor venue was offered by a Singaporean syndicate last August; a more buoyant time in this cycle, especially for the hospitality sector; price hopes were $50 million.
That seller paid $35m in October, 2017, to the operator, Patrick Ryan, with a leaseback.
Mayfair on the Monopoly board: agents
On 228 square metres diagonally adjacent to the city’s Financial precinct, selling agents described the highly exposed Republic Hotel’s location as “Mayfair on the Monopoly board”.
Licensed to trade until 5am, the hotel is fit out with a public bar, dining room, conference and events facilities and a rooftop bar, trading as Taylor’s (story continues below).
A gaming room has 28 electronic gambling machine entitlements.
“As one of 2023’s most significant core Sydney CBD transactions, along with being one of the most well known trophy assets in the pub sector, this successful result shows that there is still considerable demand in the market,” Savills’ Nick Lower, who marketed the property with JLL’s Ben McDonald, said.
Of the c$2.2 billion of Australian pub sales this year, he added, 81 per cent (c$1.8b) was in New South Wales.
“This is due in part to a number of contributing factors including the robust trading performance of hotels and the tightening of asset supply, as well as the diminishing supply of gaming machine entitlements,” according to the agent.
The deal comes four months since Virtical paid $40m for Melbourne’s Adelphi hotel.
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