This article is from the Australian Property Journal archive
THE well-known former site of restaurant Golden Century in Haymarket has sold to a private developer for around $50 million, in one of the Sydney CBD’s largest vacant possession transactions of the past 12 months.
Located at 393-399 Sussex Street in Haymarket, the four-level retail building boasts a 25-metre street frontage along the main pedestrian thoroughfare to the city’s buzzing Chinatown. Golden Century operated from the building for 31 years before the business fell into administration during the pandemic. The restaurant hosted famous culinary names such as Anthony Bourdain, Jamie Oliver and Heston Blumenthal, and was magnet for state Labor personnel while also hosting former Prime Minister Scott Morrison.
The building has 2,135sqm of net lettable area and occupies an underdeveloped 708 sqm site that has a favourable 7.5:1 base floor-space ratio, with the potential for a variety of alternate development options including retail, office, and hotel use to generate a total gross floor area of 6,372 sqm. The buyer is reportedly Anson Group who will consider long-term development plans for the site.
The building is surrounded by local landmarks including Paddy’s Market, the University of Technology Sydney, Darling Quarter Precinct, Central Park, World Square, and the Tech Central Precinct.
Savills’ Jordan Lee and Andy Hu together with JLL’s James Aroney and Linda Ko sold the property and Chris Drayton of Makinson d’Apice Lawyers assisted in facilitating the transaction. It had been listed with expectations of $60 million in April.
Lee said the campaign generated over 130 individual enquiries, with 15 groups granted access to data room and 12 formal property inspections conducted.
“Premium retail offerings along this section of Sussex Street are rarely offered to the market and the high-exposure location of this asset is second to none. The property greatly benefits from the bustling activities in the nearby retail precinct.
Aroney said Haymarket’s location close to Central Railway and the Tech Central precinct is ideally poised to benefit from an unprecedented private and public investment into the area.
