A former flour mill in Bathurst offers a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity
A rare large-scale development site is currently on the market in the centre of Bathurst, offering lots of potential for reinvention.
The property at 7 Keppel Street once served as a flour mill and spans 7440 square metres, consisting of 10 buildings, including historical silos and modern residential spaces. It now carries E2 Commercial Centre zoning, which allows for a broad range of uses.
“We see value in the current planning controls and the idea for a mix of residential accommodation, hospitality and cultural venues would suit the market very well,” said Mark Litwin, partner and head of investment sales NSW at Knight Frank.
“The original concepts for the site had a large focus on hotel accommodation, and with major tourism events such as the Bathurst 1000, support new supply into the tourist accommodation marketplace.
“We’ve seen a wide range of interest to date from the hospitality and accommodation sectors to speculative investors looking, mainly attracted to the sites aesthetic improvements, zoning and proximity to the train station.”
Bathurst, with a population of more than 135,000 in the trade area, is one of regional NSW’s fastest-growing centres with top education facilities including Charles Sturt University, a thriving manufacturing industry, along with a growing reputation as a cultural and events hub, especially for car racing with the Hi-Tec Oils Bathurst 6 Hour every April and Challenge Bathurst each November.
Significant development opportunities within Bathurst’s CBD are increasingly limited. The scale of the Keppel Street holding makes it suitable for a master-planned project that could incorporate multiple uses from ground-floor retail and dining to commercial offices or residential accommodation.
“The Bathurst CBD has a mix of larger and smaller land holdings. The scale of the offering and its proximity to the train station make it a high value proposition,” explained Litwin.
“A site with scale naturally provides more opportunity to work with the heritage component of a site like this, and introduces opportunities for modern place making concepts and hospitality venues.”
Litwin added that regional markets have undergone a renaissance over the past five years, and Bathurst has benefited from this influx of interest.
“Beginning with the exodus of major CBDs by digital nomads during COVID, people are seeing regional markets through a fresh lifestyle lens with a dramatically reduced comparative cost. Families and young adults are looking at Bathurst and its neighbouring townships of Orange and Dubbo not as just the binary commerce centres of agriculture and mineral extraction, but as opportunities for personal and professional growth.
“The Central West is emerging as a leader in renewables with the designated Central West Orana Renewable Energy Zone, an area covering approximately 20,000 square kilometres designed to unlock 4.5 gigawatts of new network capacity by the end of this decade. The employment and housing prospects are significant for those engaged in modern engineering, manufacturing and technology. At its peak, the estimated employment base is around 5000 full-time opportunities,” he said.
The property is being offered for sale by expressions of interest, closing at 4:30pm on September 23.
