A Newcastle publican is wrapping up business in Wallsend landmarks, divesting the Fire Station and offering up the Museum.
The Fire Station Hotel resides atop a large commercial site on a corner of Nelson Street, in the east of town. It provides a public bar ranging a strong selection of craft beer, featuring TAB, sports area with big screen TVs, a restaurant and large dining space with booth seating, function room and beer garden.
Sustaining “considerable weekly revenue” it has been sold to highly regarded local operators the Murphy brothers for a price sources suggest was around $6 million. The Murphys already operate the Criterion Hotel at Singleton.
Lake Macquarie is one of the fastest-growing coastal regions in NSW, seeing significant public and private infrastructure investment and local population anticipated to grow from the current 214K to 260K residents by 2046, and most expected to arrive in the coming few years.
The off-market sale was through HTL Property’s Blake Edwards, who cites market buoyancy and peak optimism.
“Following the recent Reserve Bank generated interest rate cut, and the expectation of more to follow before the end of the year, an amalgam of buyer activity and optimism has surged, leading us to the considered view that transactions over the next six months will surpass those experienced in the corresponding period during the record year of 2022,” Edwards says.
Vendor on the Fire Station was John Campbell, who sold his nearby Criterion Hotel to Ned Kelly in 2020.
Campbell has now listed the Museum Hotel, around 13 kilometres away on the other side of town, in West Wallsend.
Set on a high-exposure 662sqm corner with more than 52 metres of combined street frontage to Laidley and Wilson Streets, the hotel includes a public bar, commercial kitchen and bistro, gaming room, six accommodation rooms and a two-bedroom manager’s residence.
The accommodation is leased out, as are the 10 (Band 2) EGM entitlements, generating around $266K in passive income annually, providing an attractive holding income and options for a potential purchaser considering reactivation or redevelopment. It is expected to attract attention from “a wide cross-section” of the market, agents suggest.
“This is a rare blank canvas opportunity in a strategic growth corridor,” says HTL Property’s Xavier Plunkett, marketing the asset in conjunction with colleague Ben Kennedy.
“The venue is perfectly positioned for a hotelier looking to re-establish a trading operation, or an existing group seeking to acquire additional entitlements within the tightly held Lake Macquarie LGA.”
The freehold going concern of the Museum Hotel is being offered via Expressions of Interest, closing Thursday, 21 August.
