The highly awarded and Lucky Hotel in the heart of booming Newcastle is being sold by private investor Martin Scott.
The historic, multi-storey Lucky commands a prominent triple-street-frontage site in the dynamic city centre at the epicentre of many development projects, beside the Crown Street Light Rail stop and close to the harbour foreshore and Iris Capital’s transformative East End project, delivering over 500 apartments onto the Lucky doorstep.
Trading over three levels spanning more than 1,083sqm, it is a full-service hospitality venue, providing a ground floor public bar, bistro, gaming room with 17 machines (entitlements), and an attractive glass atrium, creating a year-round internal beer garden.
On the upper levels there are 30 boutique accommodation rooms with ensuites, which cater to corporate, education and leisure-driven demand in the busy CBD.
There are also four commercial tenancies, a residential tenancy and an office component included with the asset, which provide reliable rental income streams.
The balanced and resilient trading profile, bolstered by its key position, diversity and passive commercial income, generates around $7.25 million in annual revenue.
The Lucky holds a late trading 3:00am hotel licence, which is underutilised.
It was acquired in 2008 by the late Jeff McCloy, having been closed for some time. Six years and an extensive restoration later, it reopened to a packed house of 2000 people on its first day back, in 2014.
In 2015, largely due to the involvement of Jeff’s daughters, sisters Blake Nash and Hayley Van de Stadt, The Lucky won a staggering five AHA awards in 2015. The following year the sisters took full control of operations.
Late 2021 they sold their award-winning pub to a new entrant to the NSW market, private equity banker Martin Scott, Australian head of Partners Group, for around $20 million.
Partners and Scott have no other pub assets, and have had it operating under management. After buying for a good price and further enhancing the bottom line, they now see opportunity in divesting in the thriving city.
For years Newcastle has been evolving away from being the ‘steel city’ town driven by heavy industry, to become one of Australia’s most dynamic coastal cities. This is seen in continued strong population growth, an expanding white-collar demographic and a thriving tourism economy.
Sources suggest the freehold going concern is likely to find sale price north of $30 million.
It is being marketed by HTL Property’s Andrew Jolliffe and Dan Dragicevich, who note the rare opportunity to secure “a genuine trophy CBD freehold” in one of most tightly held coastal markets in NSW.
“Newcastle has undergone a profound transformation over the past decade, with billions invested in public infrastructure, health and education, as well as significant private sector residential and commercial development,” says Dragicevich.
The Lucky Hotel is being sold via Expressions of Interest, closing Wednesday, 1 April.
