Inner west sweetheart the Kurrajong Hotel of Erskineville is being sold, after repossession and a bare-bones renovation, for an ‘all-new’ offering on Sydney’s fringe.
Built in the 1930s, the big, three-storey corner pub is an Art Deco classic, featuring ornate parapets and a curvaceous brick frontage, skirted by burnt yellow tiles at street level.
Its 290sqm site is three kilometres from the Sydney CBD or a short walk from Erskineville station, and close to the new South Eveleigh technology park, and its 18K employees.
In 2019 it was acquired by Jon Adgemis’ Public Group, then known as Jaga Group, which ditched the long-held name of the Swanson Hotel to reopen in July that year in a return to its original moniker, the Kurrajong Hotel.
Adgemis went on to amass around two-dozen pubs, in the height of the heady post-pandemic boom in construction costs and finance rates. Mid-2024, as the group struggled with ballooning bills and repayments, one of its financiers called time and repossessed the Kurrajong and The Rose, in Paddington, reportedly owed tens of millions.
Insolvency firm Ankura was initially appointed before Melbourne-based AusPacific took over as mortgagee in possession.
The period was a stress point for the industry, with ASIC recording 1,245 insolvency appointments in May – the highest number since its formation, in 1999. The blight was said to be the confluence of stubbornly high inflation, declining consumer demand, and interest rates.
Public had begun a bottom-up, bare-bones refurbishment of the hundred-year-old pub, fitting all new cellar and cool room systems, hydraulics, and even lifts to the upper levels.
Works have now been completed, bringing what is said to be a first-class refurbishment, capped by 20 state-of-the-art en-suited accommodation rooms.
While the Hotel has not traded since its completion, industry sources suggest it is certain to fetch a figure north of $20 million.
It is on offer via an Expressions of Interest campaign closing 5 June, through HTL Property’s Andrew Jolliffe and Dan Dragicevich.
Following the recent sales of North Sydney’s Union Hotel to Ashton Waugh, and Crystal Palace in the Sydney CBD to John Feros, agents note the newly favourable landscape for investment in “hard yielding hospitality assets” on A-grade properties.
“Foreshadowed interest rate contractions are very important stimulators of sentiment and confidence in an asset category that has already out-performed most others,” adds Jolliffe.
