Sydney barrister Brian Dooley calls last drinks at Courthouse. It’s yours for around $20m

Capital Gain

In Sydney’s inner west, barrister Brian Dooley has called last drinks at his Newtown Courthouse pub.

The Sydney silk, normally to be found at 4 Wentworth Chambers or appearing at the Court of Appeal, Supreme Court or District Courts, purchased The Courty, the 773 square metre pub at 202 Australia Street in Bohemian Newtown, close to 40 years ago.

Soon after buying it, he installed Bruce Solomon’s Solotel group to look after the popular venue as its long-term manager and tenant.

Solomon’s lease expires in September, and with the pub sector running so hot, Dooley said the time is now right to sell the venue. No price was disclosed but expectations are the pub will fetch around $20 million.

HTL Property agents Andrew Jolliffe, Dan Dragicevich and Sam Handy are handling the sale.

Further inland, Tamworth is best known for its country music and Golden Guitar, but this week it’s at the centre of another major pub deal that will have Canberra-based investor Andrew Turnbull expand his hotel empire.

Turnbull’s IMG Hotel Group bought a portfolio of four pubs from the Tamworth Pub Group in a deal worth $160 million. Changing hands are four of the regional town’s venues: the Longyard Hotel, Southgate Inn, Family Hotel and The Pub (along with Brittan’s Brewery).

The vendor, Tamworth Pub Group, is a joint venture between The Pub Group’s Craig Power and Tierzah Douglas, and Sydney-based Oscars Hotel Group headed by Bill and Mario Gravanis.

Turnbull said Tamworth’s pubs present an opportunity underpinned by a “well-managed portfolio with strong economic fundamentals, population growth and diversified revenue streams”.

They will be added to IMG’s existing regional pub portfolio in Dubbo, Wellington, Mudgee, Orange, Bathurst, Mittagong and Cabarita.

The sale was advised by JLL Hotels & Hospitality group’s John Musca and Kate MacDonald.

G’day caravaners

Adelaide-based G’day Group run glorified caravan parks from the wilds of the Kimberley to Sydney’s leafy north shore.

Now they have finished upgrading their latest site, just a stone’s throw from Sydney’s centre. The Macquarie Park site is at 13 Plassey Road (known as Discovery Parks – Lane Cove), and has had a $7 million upgrade, with another $3 million likely to be spent in the next few years.

The upgrade included seven new safari tents to cater for a growing number of Sydneysiders wanting ‘staycations,’ as well as more affordable spots for visitors wanting to be near the North Ryde metro.

The Australian-owned tourism business is run by chief executive Grant Wilckens. It bought the El Questro resort in Western Australia’s far north and Kings Canyon Resort in the Northern Territory in 2021 for $60 million. The deal included the Lane Cove Holiday Park in Sydney.

G’day’s other recent NSW projects include a $4.5 million redevelopment at Emerald Beach on the Mid North Coast and a $20 million-plus transformation of a park at Forster, which it completed in 2024. On the South Coast, Discovery expanded its portfolio with a purchase in Narooma in 2023.

Break free

Private investment group Zhaos is selling the BreakFree on Broadway, a hotel at 247–253 Broadway in Glebe, with an expectation of around $25 million.

Located directly opposite Victoria Park and the Broadway Shopping Centre, the three-storey property with, basement, is fully leased to a BreakFree-branded hotel across its upper levels, and includes three ground-floor retail tenancies and a basement that has development approval for an 86-pod capsule hotel.

The 51-room hotel operates under the global BreakFree brand through a franchise agreement with Accor. It’s secured by a 10-year lease to Celestial Capital Group that includes the basement and its potential pod hotel.

Colliers’ Steam Leung, Karen Wales and Harrison Mitchell, together with Savills’ Andy Hu, Jordan Lee and Harry George, are managing the campaign.

Mental health hub

A $10 million donation from industrial property giant Goodman to St Vincent’s Hospital will help convert the former Green Park Hotel in Darlinghurst into a mental health facility. The donation was made through the Goodman Foundation.

The facility, once complete, will be known as The St Vincent’s Goodman Urban Health Hub. It will support early intervention and recovery-focused mental health services in one of Australia’s most densely populated urban communities.

The hospital bought the federation-era Darlinghurst pub, known by locals as the Greeny, in late 2020 for $8.25 million from Bruce Solomon’s Solotel group that had owned it for about 30 years.

Before the sale, the hotel had been pulling beers for 127 years and was a favoured haunt for Sydney’s LGBTQI community, as well as being a landmark venue for Mardi Gras celebrations.

carolynannecummins@gmail.com

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