Redfern proving magnetic for coal executives

Redfern proving magnetic for coal executives
Jonathan ChancellorDecember 8, 2020

Coal mining executive Peter Bond from Linc Energy has spent $2,125,000 to buy the landmark 125-year-old former Redfern post office, now an office building, as an investment. It was sold recently by Max Markson, the publicist who had used the Redfern Street heritage property as the base for publicity business Markson Sparks for five years. The building, which has a clock tower and bell, sold through McGrath agents Paul Ephron and Ben Forsyth. Markson had bought it from Sorin Dascalu & Associates in 2006 for $1.9 million.

“This commercial opening comes at a time of exciting regeneration and rapid development to the vibrant city fringe location,” Ephron says.

The former Redfern Post Office, in Redfern, NSW, was built in 1882. It has a two-storey Victorian Italianate building plus a dominant four-and-half-storey corner clock tower. The post office included a telegraph office, parlour, drawing room, three bedrooms, kitchen, a servant’s room, bathroom, scullery, washhouse, fuel shed and two stall stables. In 1880, £3000 was provided for the erection of the Redfern post office, and then the Public Works added a clock tower for an estimated extra £700.

The building has 480 square metres of internal space on its 330-square-metre Redfern Street block. Markson is looking for bigger space, and the upstairs tenant, Andrew Forrest’s Generation One Aboriginal employment initiative, retains occupancy of the upstairs space.

Redfern’s recent sales include Fiona Lochtenberg, the wife of Cockatoo Coal director Mark Lochtenberg, spending $2,215,000 through Cushman & Wakefield agent Lindsay Sturrock for a two-storey premises with 702 square metres of space on its 493-square-metre holding.

The Turner Street premises are opening as upmarket cabintery premises, Studio Becker, after a refurbishment overseen by Dale Jones-Evans Architects.

Bond has been an active player in the coal and gold mining industries in Australia for about two decades and overseas after building on his early engineering background. He gained a unique knowledge and understanding of the coal mining industry over the course of a diversified career spanning more than 20 years. Linc Energy is a Brisbane-based energy company specializing in coal and synthetic fuel production.

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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