1. AFRGA1 A030
Much More Than
a Cattle Station
‘Carmila Glen’, Carmila, QLD
• 9,030ac*, 6 titles, near Mackay and Rockhampton
• Selling WIWO – 4.5km* of absolute beach frontage
• Runs in excess 3,000* cattle in reliable rainfall region
• Large beachfront home, 2 other well situated homes
• 2 sets of cattle yards and numerous large sheds
• Able to cultivate 3,500ac*, tourism opportunity
• Wetlands with abundant wildlife plus year round feed
A highly regarded, easily managed and diverse operation.
Auction Thursday 2 June 2016 11am
Venue Rockhampton Leagues Club
Kent Street 0427 877 874
Gary Bishop 0439 982 588
John Crerar 0427 678 901
hournbishopqld.com.au
raywhiterural.com Property ID 1459372
Ray White Rural Sarina *approx.
SAR002
Rural
AFRMonday 9 May 2016
The Australian Financial Review | www.afr.com
/
30
Property =?
SilverNeedle’s NEXT
hotel eyes Paris End
An artist’s impression of the new 300-room NEXT hotel, part of QIC’s $550 million
mixed-use development plans for its blue-chip 80 Collins Street site.
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Larry Schlesinger
Sydney and
Melbourne are the
hot hotel markets.
There are well-
versed challenges in
... Perth and
Brisbane, but
everything is cyclical.
Cameron Stewart, SilverNeedle
Group
Singapore-based hotel operator
SilverNeedlewillopenanew300-room
NEXT hotel overlooking the Paris End
of Collins Street, after striking a $110
million development deal with QIC
Global Real Estate.
The hotel will form a component of
QIC’s $550 million mixed-use develop-
ment plans for its blue-chip 80 Collins
Street site, which will include 45,000
square metres of office space and 9000
square metres of retail space.
It’s the first major pre-commitment
for Queensland government-owned
QIC at 80 Collins Street, which has won
a three-month extension from the Vic-
toria state government to secure other
pre-commitments before commencing
construction.
‘‘All going to plan, we are extremely
confidentthatthehotelwillopeninlate
2018 or early 2019,’’ Cameron Stewart,
managing director of SilverNeedle
Group, told the Australian Financial
Review.
‘‘Sydney and Melbourne are the hot
hotel markets at the moment. There
are well-versed challenges in resource-
driven markets like Perth and
Brisbane, but everything is cyclical,’’
Mr Cameron added.
The Collins Street hotel is the first of
a three hotel development deal with
QIC. Other SilverNeedle hotels are set
tobeannouncedsoonatQIC’sEastland
Mall in Ringwood and at its Canberra
Centre mall.
The new Melbourne hotel takes the
value of SilverNeedle’s new develop-
mentpipelineto$215millionandabout
770 rooms spread across three hotels.
A Sage Hotel West Perth will open later
this month with Sage hotels in Forti-
tude Valley, Brisbane and Darwin com-
mencing construction soon.
SilverNeedle operates almost 50 hotels
in Australia.
‘‘This is our first hotel with QIC and
wearedelightedtoworkwiththem.It’s
a great site in Melbourne. We are in
advanced discussions with them on
other locations,’’ Mr Stewart said.
SilverNeedle’s other hotel brands are
Chifley and Country Comfort, Australis
and Sundowner. The company is a
family-runinvestmentfirmestablished
by the Nadathur Group’s Nadathur S.
Raghavan, co-founder of NASDAQ-
listed Infosys Technologies.
The new NEXT hotel is a positive
signMelbourne’shotelmarketiscatch-
ing up with Sydney’s.
Joining NEXT are the sale of Hilton
South Wharf, expected to sell for
$250-$300 million, and the Novotel
Melbourne on Collins Street, both
being marketed by JLL.
‘‘What we are finding coming out of
our marketing campaigns at the
moment is that there used to be a gap
between Sydney and Melbourne hotels
on everything from yields to price per
room, but that Melbourne has now
caught up,’’ JLL’s managing director of
investment sales, Mark Durran said at
the recent AHICE hotel conference.
Tighter planning rules
kill off Telstra site bid
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Larry Schlesinger
The Telstra site in Melbourne: Planning rules scuttle sale bid.
The day the new plot
ratios were
announced we were
instructed to
withdraw the bid.
Nick Holuigue, Maddocks lawyer
A Chinese-backed developer withdrew
its deposit for the $101 million Telstra
site on Exhibition street, which sold
last month, because of the tighter plan-
ning rules announced in April by Vic-
torian Planning Minister Richard
Wynne.
The new ‘‘plot ratio’’ rules, due to
come into effect at the end of the year,
effectively reduce the number of apart-
ments that can be developed on a site.
‘‘We were doing the running on the
Telstra site for a locally based buyer
with Asian capital. The feedback was
quite good. A deposit had been paid,’’
said Nick Holuigue who heads the
development practice team at lawyers
Maddocks.
‘‘The day the new plot ratios were
announced, we were instructed to
withdraw the bid. I understand
anotherbidder pulledoutof theTelstra
site on similar grounds.’’
The 4000-square-metre Telstra site
fronting Exhibition and La Trobe
streets and overlooking Carlton Gar-
dens attracted bids from offshore and
local heavyweights before being
snapped up by Malaysia’s largest listed
developer, SP Setia in a record-
breaking deal for a city site, according
to selling agents CBRE.
CBRE director Mark Wizel said Mr
Holuigue’s client was not among those
shortlisted.
In April, in an effort to curb over-
zealous high-rise development, Mr
Wynne announced that plot ratios in
the CBD and Southbank would shrink
from an interim measure of 24:1 to a
permanent 18:1 at the end of the year,
subject to public consultation.
Developers can push for greater dens-
ityonasiteiftheyincludeacommunity
benefit element in their proposal such
as a public park or childcare centre.
Jiaheng Chan, managing director of
Beulah International, which was a bid-
der on the Telstra site, downplayed
concerns about the new planning con-
trols.
‘‘The potential tighter planning con-
trols won’t dampen our appetite for
Melbourne sites,’’ he said.
But, he conceded: ‘‘They may affect
future site acquisitions in so much as
when choosing non-permitted CBD
sites,wewillensuretheyarebiggerand
provide the opportunity for a park or
public space, which is something the
Telstra site offers.’’
Apart from new plot ratios,
developers face other headwinds
including a doubling of the stamp duty
levy on offshore purchases of residen-
tial property, from 3 per cent to 7 per
cent from July 1 and a pullback in lend-
ing to foreign buyers.
Mr Holuigue said he was aware of
two big CBD apartment projects (more
than 500 apartments each), where off-
the-plan marketing has been brought
forward so that offshore buyers won’t
get stung with the new levy.