Balmain’s Town Hall Hotel has been sold on behalf of receivers looking after Public Hospitality assets.
The former Town Hall Hotel in Balmain has sold, after a month-long public auction process, to an investor with intentions of reactivating the site back into a trading hotel business.
The campaign garnered intense interest from numerous buyer segments across the market, and was sold on behalf of the appointed receivers Joseph Hayes and Chris Johnson of Wexted Advisors.
Public Hospitality’s woes have been well documented over the last eighteen months, with several of its venues placed into receivership in September last year, and staff and suppliers chasing payment. The management of three of its inner-Sydney venues – The Norfolk in Redfern, Oxford House in Paddington, Camelia Grove Hotel in Alexandria – was taken over by Solotel at the end of 2024, with The Norfolk the first of the three venues to have its offering revamped.
Balmain’s Town Hall Hotel is currently vacant, but has long been considered an institution in Balmain’s vibrant pub scene.
Last sold for $8 million, the hotel has sat dormant for a number of years, after being occupied as a mixed-use development comprising a physiotherapy practice, gymnasium and bottle shop.
A DA was lodged and approved for the premises to be reconfigured back into a pub, and it was widely reported in October 2022 that acclaimed Italian chef Alessandro Pavoni of Crown Sydney’s a’Mare and Ormeggio at The Spit, had signed a lease to operate the business as a gastropub. Pavoni was the culinary ambassador for the Public Hospitality Group at the time.
Town Hall Hotel was reintroduced to market last month with a DA approval for alterations and additions to the existing building to be reconfigured back into a two-level pub. The 443 sqm site is perched on the corner of Darling and Montague Streets, overlooking the Balmain retail precinct, and it was marketed as a blank canvas with numerous alternative-use options over and above being converted back into a hotel. The site enjoys favourable and flexible planning controls which support further intensification via retail, commercial and/or residential conversion (STCA).
It has been suggested that the successful purchaser will reconfigure, renovate and refurbish the building back into a hotel, and reposition the offering in line with the nearby Dry Dock Hotel, which has enjoyed rampant success since reopening in November 2023.
The Town Hall Hotel was sold by Sam Handy and Andrew Jolliffe of HTL Property in conjunction with James Cowan and Matthew Meynell of Colliers.
“There have been twenty-two pub transactions concluded across the Balmain peninsula over the last fifteen years, and the agents comprising HTL Property have been fortunate enough to have negotiated some twenty of these sales,” stated Handy.
Cowan added: “Colliers are proud to transact another landmark property in Balmain, and are pleased with the rounded interest, competitive tension and the ultimate sale price achieved.”
The agents wouldn’t be drawn upon the sale price, other than to advise that it well in excess of the prices achieved on the last three pub transactions within the catchment which were the Gary Owen Hotel ($6.5m), London Hotel ($8.5m) and the Dry Dock Hotel ($7.5m).