'Three Amigos' buy Moore Park's Entertainment Quarter

'Three Amigos' buy Moore Park's Entertainment Quarter
Jonathan ChancellorDecember 7, 2020

The high profile investor syndicate of John Singleton, Gerry Harvey and Mark Carnegie have spent $80 million to buy the Entertainment Quarter at Moore Park.

Known as the 'three amigos', the trio see the potential for redevelopment at the Centennial Park location.

''We - John Singleton, Katie Page, Mark Carnegie and I - visited it a couple of times and realised it was hard to get 11 hectares with development opportunities and its location, anywhere else in Sydney,'' Harvey told Fairfax Media.

He signalled about 26,000 square metres within could be readily redeveloped after consultation with the local residents.

"We will look at all options, including a hotel, pubs, serviced apartments and an updated retail sector,'' Harvey suggested.

The syndicate's portfolio has centred on hotel acquisitions.

The 11.08 hectare site centres around the Bent Street retail precinct and the former Sydney Showground show-ring.

CFS Retail Property Trust listed its leasehold interest in The Entertainment Quarter through Sam McVay from McVay Real Estate who secured the offer from the consortium headed by the Carnegie Private Opportunities Fund No. 1.

The sale of the mixed use asset focused on retail, entertainment, leisure and space in the Centennial Park precinct is conditional on the approval of the ground lessor and the NSW government. 

CFS and one of its wholesale funds, CFSGAM Property Retail Partnership, jointly hold a leasehold interest in the asset. The most recent CBRE valuation as at December 2013 was $63 million, with no vacancy rate, however down on its mid-2013 valuation of $66.4 million.

Michael Gorman, the deputy CEO, said the sale was in line with its strategy of divesting non-core assets.

It was sold by the CFS almost 10 years after it was bought from Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation and the developer, Lend Lease.

Photo courtesy of J Bar/ Creative Commons.

Jonathan Chancellor

Jonathan Chancellor is one of Australia's most respected property journalists, having been at the top of the game since the early 1980s. Jonathan co-founded the property industry website Property Observer and has written for national and international publications.

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