Malaysian group Tune Hotels has secured a site in one of Melbourne's fastest growing central business district pockets for $18.5 million.
CBRE's Josh Rutman, who negotiated the sale of the property along with Mark Wizel and Paul Tzamalis, said the site was “hotly contested” from both domestic and offshore groups during the sales process, with significant interest from a number of Chinese and Malaysian groups.
Tune Hotels CEO Mark Lankester said the group wanted to make its debut in the Melbourne market. "Australia has, for a long time, been a country that we see strong growth prospects for and we are delighted to continue investing in those prospects," he said in a statement. "Melbourne is a city that we are very familiar with and the opportunity for the hotel accommodation market, coupled with strong overall visitor growth, ticks all the boxes for us."
An evergreen investment destination, Melbourne has attracted several planned projects so far this year. The Four Points by Sheraton Docklands is slated to open at the end of this year, and a new 331-room, $300-million hotel is planned for the expanding Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre. (No branded partner for the hotel has been named as of yet.) In February, Peppers Docklands opened as the first of Mantra Group’s Peppers properties in the city’s central business district as part of Capital Alliance Investment Group’s $100-million M Docklands development.