Capital Gain

Singers, glittering acrobats, a smattering of politicians and long-time club officials gathered at Cabra-Vale Diggers Club in Sydney’s west for its centenary birthday bash.

Along with book signings, the club is spending $230 million on building a new Novotel and giving itself a facelift to transform into a resort-style centre, catering for western Sydney’s growing population.

The 100-year-old club will rebrand as Cabravale Club Resort, an integrated hospitality venue with a new dining precinct and large area of entertainment and event spaces. The Novotel is under construction ahead of Sydney’s second international airport opening at Badgerys Creek.

Speaking at the launch on Wednesday night, NSW Premier Chris Minns said that the club has been a fixture of the local community for a century. “You’ve helped people come together while giving back to the local community that supports you,” Minns said.

Cabra-Vale Diggers grew from humble beginnings in a repurposed army hut to become the popular local institution.

With the airport at Badgerys Creek due to open officially in late 2026, hoteliers, pub owners and developers are flocking to the area. A recent deal will see Ingham Property Group transform a 184-hectare site near the Western Sydney Aerotropolis into a 625,000-square-metre industry hub.

Charter’s chiefs

Property giant Charter Hall’s top chaps – chief executive and Mosman local David Harrison and finance director Sean McMahon – are part of a syndicate offloading a major site on Military Road, near Spit Junction, which comes with a hefty price tag of about $20 million.

The landmark commercial property in one of Sydney’s most tightly held retail precincts at 640 & 646 Military Road, Mosman is owned by a company called Offorang, whose shareholders include Harrison and McMahon.

The Charter Hall execs, and their four syndicate partners, lease two prominent ground-floor tenancies in the property to Officeworks and real estate agency Richardson & Wrench, alongside three first-floor commercial suites, one of which is used by national gym operator Orangetheory Fitness.

The fully leased property is directly opposite the busy Bridgepoint Shopping Centre and generates a gross annual income of just over $1.05 million. Agents from Ray White Commercial Sydney North and P. Leahy Real Estate are handling the deal.

A Shire thing

Closer to Sydney’s existing airport, in a tightly held south, a 1.47-hectare automotive site fully leased to ASX-listed Eagers Automotive is being offered to investors with a price tag of $70 million.

The Sutherland Shire site at 499-511 Princes Highway and 130 Bath Road, Kirrawee, has four automotive showrooms plus associated service centres and is being sold by a long-term high net worth private owner.

It generates an annual net income of $3.2 million, underpinned by a 9.47-year weighted average lease expiry with option periods out to 2052. The property houses six global car brands: Volvo, BYD, Volkswagen, Nissan, Chery and GM Special Vehicles.

Cushman & Wakefield’s Jack Harrison, David Hall, Tim Cassidy, Archie Cropley and Mark Hansen are the agents on the deal.

Frothy sales

A busy two weeks in the pub world have resulted in Jon Adgemis’ embattled Public Hospitality having to sell the freehold of Balmain’s Town Hall hotel. The property was sold at auction by receivers for $9.5 million to a private investor.

Earlier this week, another mystery buyer snapped up one of Adgemis’ former keystone pubs, the Rose Shamrock and Thistle at Paddington, for about $20 million. Both deals were done by HTL Property.

In a twist, the Kospetas family’s Universal Hotel Group and long-time publican Sue Cameron swapped two inner-city Sydney pubs with a combined value of about $20 million.

Universal offloaded its leasehold interest in Sydney’s Newtown Hotel to Cameron, who will take over the pub operation, and purchased the freehold of the Lord Roberts Hotel in Darlinghurst from Cameron, giving the company ownership of the property as well as the business. JLL Hotels completed the deal.

Droning on

As the sky gets more crowded with drones, security for those of us below is becoming big business.

ASX-listed DroneShield will invest an initial $13 million in a new research, development and manufacturing facility, tripling the size of its current facility as it expands its manufacturing capacity to $2.6 billion by the end of 2026.

The address is a tightly held secret for security reasons, but the deal involves a multi-year lease and fitout commitment for a brand new 3000-square-metre production facility in Sydney’s Alexandria, expected to open in December 2025.

DroneShield provides AI-powered hardware and software solutions to detect, track and defeat unmanned threats from drones used by terrorists, state actors, criminals “and other nefarious groups”.

Contact carolynannecummins@gmail.com

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