Former owners of Toff in Town, Revolver on Chapel and King Street’s Inflation sell CBD home-office for $4.55m

The top two bidders then went head-to-head in an auction which delivered the couple an extra $400,000 above the reserve price.

The sale is the end of an era as the couple is understood to be moving to Byron Bay.

The Ippolitis have been the mainstays behind more than a dozen nightclubs and restaurants, including The Toff in Town, Revolver on Chapel Street and King Street’s Inflation back in the 1980s.

Cushman & Wakefield’s Oliver Hay, Anthony Kirwan and George Davies handled the auction. While not public, that was the first CBD auction for the year.

Coming up on June 6, the team is auctioning 423-425 Elizabeth Street, a pair of shops close to the iconic Argus newspaper headquarters on the corner of Lonsdale Street which were part of the Argus Hotel.

An $11 million deal with the Chang family (via the collapsed Everland Global) back in 2021 never made it to settlement so the vendors who bought in 1981, for $70,000, are going back to the market.

Once part of Elizabeth Street’s historic strip of motorcycle dealerships, it is now leased to the world’s largest food and beverage group, Mixue, which sells tea and icecream.

The 283 square metre shop is on a 184 sq m parcel of land with a five-year lease and option. It returns $428,480 a year in rent.

Blast off

Fresh from selling 66 hectares of Deer Park to UniSuper, explosives giant Orica is blasting off a key slice of land along Ballarat Road.

Two small parcels at 753-757 and 761 Ballarat Road cover 2.8 hectares over four titles with Commercial 2 zoning.

They’re across the road from the Deer Park Hotel and the Cairnlea residential estate which suggests a less industrial future. The new Costco is also down the road. Price expectations are between $14 million and $15 million.

Last year, UniSuper paid $260 million for the land at its rear, the Deer Park Estate, where it will develop a $1 billion industrial estate with GPT.

Gross Waddell agents Danny Clare, Raff De Luise, Alex Ham and Glenn Ye are on the case, with transaction manager Charter Keck Cramer.

The extensive Deer Park landholding has been used for the storage and testing of explosives since 1874 and Orica has another 60 hectares remaining.

The Stack

Cremorne developer Alfasi is selling off a 1567 sq m strip of land at the rear of its $600 million Matchworks redevelopment at the old Bryant & May factory.

The property on Chestnut Street comes with a planning permit for a 6111 sq m office project, dubbed “The Stack”, designed by Denton Corker Marshall.

Alfasi bought the one hectare site at 560 Church Street for around $80 million in 2022. It’s planning a swag of new buildings including offices and a hotel.

Colliers’ Ben Baines and Alex Browne are running the campaign and are quoting around $16 million for the property.

It’s in the heart of the “Silicon Yarra” fringe office precinct where technology giants and creative industries are mopping up the former industrial buildings.

Ivanhoe Manor

Embattled private hospital network Healthscope is off-loading a rehabilitation clinic which comes with a historic Victorian mansion.

Ivanhoe Manor is on a large 7272 sq m plot of residential-zoned land at 134-136 Ford Street near Darebin Creek.

The rehab facility is a 46-bed hospital with therapy and consulting rooms, a hydrotherapy pool and a commercial kitchen.

Originally called Fairview, the mansion was built in the late 19th century for businessman and local councillor, Alfred Ford.

JLL’s Jesse Radisich, Josh Rutman, Mark Stafford and Mingxuan Li are selling the property with transaction manager Dan Magree of Magree Property Advisory.

They’re expecting around $8 million.

The ailing Healthscope business, bought by Canadian property giant Brookfield for $5.7 billion in 2019, has been handed to a syndicate of lenders who are expected to lose billions over the deal. Luckily, Healthscope has plenty more ageing rehab clinics in highly desirable residential areas but probably not enough to cover the shortfall.

Ivanhoe Manor is not the only mansion up for sale. The University of Melbourne is selling Cumnock, a property it purchased in 2017 for $7.1 million from property developer and investor Drapac.

Built in 1889, 160-162 The Avenue is across the road from Royal Park on 1376 sq m.

It was bought during the last year of former vice chancellor Glyn Davis’ tenure when the existing on-campus VC residence was undergoing extensive works. The most recent VC, Duncan Maskell, was replaced by Emma Johnston in February.

Nelson Alexander’s Nicholas West is running the campaign and expecting around $8 million.

Fire sale

Remarkably, an offshoot of the collapsed APH Holdings group has placed a new property in Forest Hill on the market.

Remarkable because the subsidiary company which owns 347-351 Burwood Highway, Poly Holding City Square (Burwood), has not been wound up by its lenders, Macquarie Bank and Marshall Investment Finance.

Most of APH’s subsidiaries and associated companies have been placed into receivership or liquidation over the past year as debts mounted and building costs soared.

While this company hasn’t followed that path, records show APH’s owner, James Zhang, was replaced as both director and company secretary of Poly Holding City Square (Burwood), last month, by Peibin Huangfu and Ruiyu Zhang.

The 2.62 hectare site has two fully leased buildings covering 10,589 sq m, an onsite childcare centre and three-level 721-bay car park. The average lease term is 4.47 years bringing in $3.37 million a year.

Lemon Baxter agents Thomas Blencowe, Paul O’Sullivan and Hans Fan, with Colliers’ Scott Orchard, Alex Browne and Ben Baines are handling the campaign. Its current listing price is around $40 million, less than its 2019 sale price of $45.85 million.

Next door, at No.358-383, is the old 5.8 ha Hewlett Packard campus which was sold last year to Malaysian-government owned company MRCB Australia for around $68 million bid – well short of the $90 million asking price.

The fire sale continues at the Tally Ho Business Park where another office owned by the group at 16 Lakeside Drive is for sale at $8.95 million.

An APH subsidiary, BFX 16 Lakeside Drive, bought 16 Lakeside Drive for $13 million in March 2022. Creditors reports are claiming at least $17 million.