Developers offer $85m for entire Potts Point apartment block

Amid the coronavirus lockdown, some apartment developers have an exploratory eye on the future.

There has been a conditional $85 million offer made for the purchase of every apartment in The Chimes, a well-positioned but dated Potts Point apartment block. The offer has been made by Tim Price’s Time & Place Property, which equates to just over $1 million per apartment.

Investors in the block include former Home and Away actor Erika ­Heynatz who paid $342,500 in 2004.

The Macleay St block is best known for its pricey car space prices rather than its 80 studio apartments, after a then Sydney record $264,000 was paid for a car space in 2016.

Set at the Parisian end of the strip, its 10-storey building sits on less than a third of its 1284sqm holding. It was constructed in 1964 after partial demolition of the 1905 Santa Fe row of Queen Anne style terraces.

Erika Heynatz is a notable owner in the building. Picture by Damian Shaw

The body corporate has signed a non-binding heads of agreement giving Time & Place eight weeks for due diligence on whether to proceed to acquisition and demolition.

The priciest sale, with Opera House views from the eighth floor, was $825,000 in 2018, with a car space. The cheapest recent sale was $520,000.

Insiders reckon the proposal becomes problematic for the better positioned owners if the $85 million is apportioned based on official strata entitlement. Almost all the units have the same entitlement irrespective of whether they have harbour views or overlook its car park, or whether they are 28sqm or 38sqm.

This article from The Daily Telegraph originally appeared as “Developers offer $85m for The Chimes in Potts Point”.