Representing the final piece in the shattered Jon Adgemis Public Hospitality portfolio, Collingwood’s historic Vine Hotel is being sold as a vacant possession.
The Caledonian Hotel was built on the site in 1869, renamed The Vine in 1875. The roughly 417sqm lot on the corner of Wellington and Derby Streets has three street frontages, occupied by an empty two-storey building with heritage features, in one of Melbourne’s most tightly held inner-city precincts.
Adjoining Gurner’s ‘Victoria on Vine’ residential development and directly opposite Monash IVF, it is within walking distance of the CBD and MCG. The area is undergoing significant nearby investment and development, amongst multiple well-recognised business headquarters, premium residential projects, medical facilities and offices.
In 2019 Sparkke brewery bought the hotel, touting plans for it to become a new pub-brewery showpiece.
Widening the scope of the Public Hospitality portfolio that launched in Sydney a few years earlier, in 2021 former KPMG banker Adgemis paid $4.75 million for the asset.
Heralding a future George Calombaris restaurant the building was stripped and remediation works done in preparation for the revised hotel.
But Adgemis was ruled bankrupt by the ATO in late 2025, owing in the order of $1.8 billion, and the nearly two-dozen Public Hospitality assets have been repossessed and sold off in a procession of sales by lenders and receivers.
Following campaigns on the Clifton Hotel in Kew, and Saint Hotel in St Kilda, the mortgagee in possession at The Vine has put it to market through HTL Property’s Scott Callow and George Iliopulos, who note a purchaser has opportunity to consider how best to reposition the property.
“The Vine is one of those assets where the location tells much of the story,” says Callow.
“Gertrude Street, Smith Street and Brunswick Street have become destinations in their own right, and The Vine is right in the middle of that catchment.”
Agents relay the market has a “strong appetite” for assets with an identifiable pathway to create value and its thought The Vine could appeal to an experienced hotel operator or investor.
Acknowledging the cost of returning it to a going concern from a partially completed refurbishment the vendors are looking at sale price of around $4 million, providing a rare combination of an asset with established hospitality history, a prominent position and flexibility. The designs of the incomplete work are available on enquiry.
“This isn’t simply a hotel sitting in isolation – it is an asset embedded within a rapidly evolving inner-city neighbourhood,” states Callow.
The sale is by Expressions of Interest, closing Wednesday, 25 November.
