$200m asking price for Melbourne’s Pullman on the Park

Melbourne’s Pullman on the Park has been listed for sale with expectations of a five-star price to top $200 million.

Just months after a $12.5 million refurbishment overhauled the hotel’s bar and lobby, a favourite post-game venue for Melbourne’s football and cricket fans attending the MCG, the hotel has been listed for sale as current owner Brookfield Assett Management looks to check out.

McVay Real Estate chairman Dan McVay said while the hotel, known as the Hilton on the Park until 2015, had only been on the market for a few days it had already attracted plenty of attention, including from interstate, Singapore and Hong Kong.

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“We have had a heap of interest and we have only just launched it,” McVay says.

“It will be somewhere around $200 million, we have plenty of people wanting to inspect it at that price. But in this competitive market, anything could happen.”

The Cliveden restaurant is set downstairs at the hotel. Picture: Rebecca Michael.

The interest had been bolstered by recent improvements at the hotel, he adds.

“In the last 12 months they have spent $12.5 million on the hotel and most of it on the lobby and the front bar,” McVay says.

There were also plans in mind for a basement bar to be reopened at the hotel, according to McVay.

The five-star hotel at 192 Wellington Rd, East Melbourne, has 419 rooms, conference facilities, a 1000-person ballroom that is popular for events and weddings, and parking for 215 cars.

Set opposite Jolimont train station, the hotel has views to the MCG, CBD and the neighbouring Fitzroy Gardens.

“To be able to sell a hotel like that in Melbourne right now is just ideal,” McVay says.

He tips the average inspection of the high-rise hotel will last 2.5 hours, starting in the basement and working its way through the different room types to the top of the building and through its back-of-house areas.

The hotel is located between the MCG and Melbourne’s CBD.

The AccorHotels group has a management agreement for the hotel.

“But there could be an opportunity at the point of sale for the buyer to request a vacant possession,” Mr McVay says.

This could see the hotel’s name changed for the second time since 2015.

If it were to change names, it wouldn’t be the only new name coming to Melbourne’s hotel industry.

“Melbourne’s hotel sector has some supply coming with the Ritz and The W Hotel, but it needs it — the market is quite strong,” Mr McVay said.

Tourism Accommodation Australia Victorian general manager Dougal Hollis says the listing is well timed against a backdrop of growing success for the city’s hotels.

“Investor interest is no doubt encouraged as a result of continuing strong growth in domestic and international tourism to Victoria,” Hollis says.

“Melbourne topped the list of Australian capital cities for domestic visitor nights spent in hotels, motels and resorts for the year ended September 2017 (9.74 million nights).”

In Docklands, construction is expected to start on a 17-storey apartment development and five-star hotel to be run by the Marriott, titled The Docklands, later this month.

McVay says the Melbourne market had been competitive in recent months, with the Royce Hotel on St Kilda Rd attracting significant attention ahead of a sale in November last year.

Melbourne hotelier Mazen Tabet reportedly purchased the hotel for $55 million.

McVay is selling the hotel in conjunction with Jones Lang LaSalle’s Peter Harper.

An expressions of interest campaign for the Pullman on the Park is scheduled to wrap up by March 15.

This article from the Herald Sun first appeared as “Pullman on the Park for sale with nine-figure asking price”.