By Vanessa Cavasinni, editor Australian Hotelier
The Acacia Ridge Hotel in Brisbane, the largest in the state has just been placed on the market by its Sydney owners.
The freehold hotel, sitting on an 18,450 sqm, site is being put up for sale by Sydney hotelier Peter Calligeros and business partner Stephen Farley, two years after purchasing the hotel. It is the first time a top 10 gaming hotel in Queensland has been placed on the market in over a decade.
The hotel is placed within the South Brisbane Growth Corridor Precinct – situated within in the industrial suburb of Acacia Ridge and surrounded by the expanding residential suburbs of Sunny Bank, Sunny Bank Hills and the $600 million development of Cooper Plains.
Calligeros and Farley purchased the hotel in 2014 and have since renovated the hotel, which includes 45 EGMs, a large-format drive-through bottle shop, bar and conference facilities, and a detached 34-room motel complex. It also has a 230-space carpark.
Andrew Jolliffe of Ray White Hotels and Glenn Price of CBRE Hotels (who sold the Acacia Ridge Hotel to Calligeros two years ago) are managing the sale campaign. Jolliffe suggests that large-format hotels like Acacia Ridge continue to be popular along the country’s eastern seaboard.
"We've seen the depth of the market tested several times this year in gateway cities across the Australian East Coast, and the almost invariable result has been that high quality assets which enjoy a confluence of both scale and opportunity remain compelling and commensurately sought after by well-informed capital."
Price added that the possibilities associated with the large site would make the hotel attractive to many investors.
“The critical land size upon which the Acacia Ridge Hotel is located, a proportion of which is supplementary to the current hotel operation needs, provides an astute investor with ancillary mixed use, or conversely wholesale alternative use opportunities."
Having purchased the hotel in 2014 for roughly $16 million, Calligeros and Farley are set to make a healthy profit, with the hotel expected to sell in the vicinity of $30 million.