In its first acquisition outside of NSW, Justin Hemmes’ hospitality empire has struck a deal to buy Tomasetti House at 277-279 Flinders Lane in Melbourne. The deal isreportedly at a price of $40 million plus and will not settle until later in the year.
Tomasetti House is a seven-storey brick and bluestone building with a basement. Its earliest section was built in 1853, refurbished and extended in 1905, when a new Art Nouveau facade was added then underwent a $4 million refurbishment in 1989 with further work carried out in 2006. The building is listed as a notable building in the Melbourne Planning Scheme and it was listed in the Register of the National Estate in 1993.
Tomasetti House is fully occupied with tenants including the Lonsdale Institute, Pole Princess and The Mill House. It was purchased for $16.2 million in 2014 by interests associated with Margaret and Warren Millett of Sydney. That sale represented a yield of 7.14% on a fully leased income of $1,156,870.
Mr Hemmes is said to have also acquired space in another historic building in Sydney by buying the former basement restaurant space of the Burns Philp Building. This is a four-storey building which was completed in 1901 for Burns, Philp and Co, a then major Australian shipping and trading merchant company. The price for the latest sale is not yet disclosed.
CoreLogic Australia