When times get tough, cashed-up investors with deep pockets start looking for distressed property. In Melbourne’s tightly held Bourke Hill precinct, the CBD has a new landlord, with rich-lister Patricia Ilhan buying a building on the strip for $16.3 million.
The off-market deal was done directly between Ilhan and the vendor, who bought Bourke Hill for just $2.65 million in 2000. In 2015, Macs Hotel Investments paid $9.8 million for No.59-63 – home of the Spaghetti Tree and Madame Brussels – and the O’Brien Group paid $11.4 million for the Imperial Hotel on the corner of Spring Street.
Li was after $15 million for the Maria George building and a discounted $30 million for trophy asset, the Prince of Wales hotel in St Kilda. He had paid $45 million for the Prince of Wales in 2015 and $11.4 million for Maria George in 2017. Hungry Jack’s signed a 15-year lease on a 500-square-metre space in 2018 after its Swanston Street digs up the road were closed for the Metro Melbourne project. Scape’s new building on that site is just getting under way.