Foreigners vie for iconic sites

INTERNATIONAL investors are circling a raft of iconic government sandstone buildings to be redeveloped into tourism and hotel operations as NSW offloads assets to improve its bottom line.

Thirty-five companies and consortiums have registered their interest for Sydney's historic Department of Education and Department of Lands buildings on Bridge Street in the heart of the Sydney's CBD following conversations with Tourism Australia, which sent delegates to Asia in December to liaise with Singaporean, Malaysian, Indonesian and Hong Kong hotel operators.

The Australian understands that a Starwood-branded hotel is among several groups interested in the properties, with potential plans to redevelop the Department of Education building, which could fetch up to $80 million, into a 250-room hotel. Meanwhile, ideas for a 90-100 room hotel at the smaller Lands Department site are being considered.

Finance Minister Andrew Constance said the buildings had attracted great interest and would be sold off to raise revenue.

"By setting aside these assets for tourism purposes, we are supporting the NSW Visitor Economy Taskforce which has a goal to increase overnight visitor expenditure from $18.3 billion in 2009 to $36.6bn by 2020."

Mr Constance said NSW was committed to driving tourism in NSW and the properties, which have more than 23,000sq m of buildable area, had the potential to deliver world-class facilities and accommodation services.

Source:  The Australian - 17 February 2014