This article is from the Australian Property Journal archive
HOBART’S heritage-listed Colonial Mutual Life Building has sold for $6.1 million, following prominent businessman Robert Rockefeller’s $50.3 million sale of the ANZ Centre next door to a Charter Hall fund.
Documents obtained by Australian Property Journal show Colonial Properties Pty Ltd purchased the 2,585 sqm building, which is on a 407 sqm corner site at 18-20 Elizabeth Street with frontage to Macquarie Street and opposite Franklin Square.
The vendor was a syndicate of private investors that paid Robert Nettlefold Pty Ltd $2.75 million in 2008 for the asset, and for which the prominent Nettlefold family’s trust acquired from Colonial Mutual Life Assurance Society in 1987 for $1.76 million.
The B-grade office building has ground floor retail and is included in the Royal Australian Institute of Architects’ list of notable Tasmanian buildings of the 20th century. It was featured November’s Open House Hobart program.
Next door, the 14-level, A-grade commercial tower of 10,703 sqm at 22-26 Elizabeth Street and 103 Macquarie Street was quietly sold by Rockefeller’s family company Nekon Pty Ltd for $50,303,782 to Charter Hall Direct PFA Fund earlier last year.
It encompasses an irregularly-shaped 2,008 sqm block that has frontages to both Elizabeth and Macquarie Streets, and isolates the CML building on its corner perch.
Primarily leased to the Tasmanian state government with a 12-year WALE, the ANZ Centre property includes a five-level heritage building, ground floor retail and parking, and is integrated with a two-storey heritage building.
Late last year, the refurbished 12-level A-grade office tower at 144 Macquarie Street was listed through Knight Frank and Edwards Windsor with an asking price of $15 million.
On the other side of Franklin Square is the state’s government’s Department of Treasury and Finance building at 21 Murray Street, also bound by Macquarie Street and Davey Street, which Tasmanian Treasurer Peter Gutwein revealed in June the state intended to sell off for potentially more than $20 million.
Further down Macquarie Street, Singapore’s Fragrance Group emerged as the developer that acquired the 179 Macquarie Street property in August. The site has approval for a 30-metre high, nine-storey hotel with 202 rooms. Fragrance, which owns the adjoining Ibis Styles Hobart hotel, had appealed against previously approved plans for a development on the site.
Australian Property Journal
