The recently homeless Martin Place Bar has come to market, in a rare example of opportunity in the tightly held Sydney hospitality and property market.
Formerly located on pedestrian thoroughfare Martin Place in the heart of the CBD, Martin Place Bar was a traditional-style pub, with popular modern public bar frequented by the surrounding business populace, and 17 EGMs, finding it into a position in the 200s on L&G’s state rankings in its last year of trade.
In 2018 its lodging was acquired by State government for the upgrades to the Martin Place Metro Station. The site is now part of Macquarie Group’s proposed Over Station Development.
The extensive infrastructure works that have been going on in Sydney, most notably the light rail line down George Street, has necessitated other hotel forced closures, as seen at Simon Tilley’s New Windsor and John Ryan’s George St stalwart 333 Bar.
Tilley has secured a new site in ANZ Place, and Ryan is understood to be entertaining options on the future of his licence and entitlements.
Proprietor of Martin Place bar, Peter Wynne, spent considerable time seeking a new site, before settling on a tree change with purchase of Richmond’s Royal Hotel this month. He has now engaged HTL Property’s Xavier Plunkett and Dan Dragicevich to market the rare option of a hotel licence and 17 entitlements.
The orphan pub and assets were Band 2, and likely to appeal to brown- or greenfield sites in the CBD and Wynyard, as well as surrounding suburbs such as Haymarket, Redfern, Chippendale, Zetland and Roseberry.
The latter largely enjoy less competitive environments, amid growing residential populations, and less competition around best use than CBD commercial property.
Representing an uncommon opportunity to the right party, agents expect considerable competition in market pricing of the assets.
“CBD licences are tightly held and very rarely come to market,” says Plunkett.
“For this reason, coupled with the fact that the City of Sydney LGA is NSW’s highest-performing gaming LGA in terms of total revenue, we expect strong interest in the licence.”
The hotel licence and PMEs are being sold via Expressions of Interest, closing Thursday 15th August
