This article is from the Australian Property Journal archive
A FORMER aged care facility, part of the collapsed Chronos business, together with neighbouring residential sites in Melbourne’s north east have sold together for nearly $15 million.
The Alphington site spans 6,527 sqm, with the empty facility site accounting for 6,040 sqm at 9-11 Old Heidelberg Road. It also includes two older-style vacant houses at 13 and 15 Old Heidelberg Road.
Gray Johnson’s Rory White and Matt Hoath sold the property on behalf of the family that had owned the operations and the site for some 25 years.
The site was one of two Chronos Care facilities – the other is in the bayside suburb of Mount Eliza – that was run by brothers Chris and Gerry Apostolatos. Both were shut down in summer with potential debts to creditors, residents and employees of $25 million, and the 60 residents were required to find new homes.
The business was put into voluntary administration last year just days before it had to return deposits to families of former residents or be stripped of its status as an approved provider and lose federal funding.
The Apostolatos brothers established the Chronos business in 2014 when they were bankrupt and had combined debts of over $5 million. They also pleaded guilty to animal cruelty charges in 2015 regarding the mistreatment of more than one million chickens that resulted in the deaths of 86,000 birds.
All the buildings on the Alphington site are likely to be demolished, according to the agents. A caveat was lodged for the site in the name of Perpetual Nominees Limited.
Seven kilometres from the CBD, the property has long frontages of 62 metres to Old Heidelberg Road and 109 metres to Heidelberg Road, and adjoins Sparks Reserve and the Darebin Creek Trail with the Alphington railway station nearby.
It is also near the YarraBend residential project, on the former paper mill site at the junction of the Chandler Highway and Heidelberg Road, as well as Dan Murphy’s head offices.
