Without Reserve

Doltone House Hyde Park is a new 650-seat events venue inside the Tattersalls Club building in Elizabeth Street. It’s notable because it joins other hotels and venues revamping conference and catering facilities to meet rising demand as Sydney’s convention landscape changes.

Hotels are upgrading ballrooms and conference spaces because demand for conference and catering centres is rising, partly in anticipation of the closure of the Sydney entertainment and convention centres at Darling Harbour. The article notes a city-wide push to capture that event business.

M&L Hospitality, the owner of Four Points by Sheraton, is planning to inject $20 million into its property as part of wider hotel and conference refurbishments in the city mentioned in the article.

According to the article, the anticipated closure of the Darling Harbour entertainment and convention centres is driving increased demand for alternative conference and catering spaces, prompting hotels and venues across the city to upgrade facilities to attract those events.

The BRW Rich List highlighted that property owners and developers dominated this year’s rankings, illustrating there is still significant capital and wealth concentrated in bricks-and-mortar real estate.

The article lists Westfield founder Frank Lowy at No. 2 with a personal worth of $6.87 billion, residential developer Harry Triguboff at No. 6 with $4.95 billion, and shopping-centre investor John Gandel at No. 8 with $3.7 billion.

John Singleton’s investments in pubs, through his interest in the Riversdale Group and Macquarie Radio Network, are credited in the article with contributing to his reported worth of $355 million, placing him at No. 135 on the list.

The article suggests that there is continuing investor and developer interest in property and hospitality — evidenced by venue refurbishments and large property fortunes on the BRW Rich List — which may signal ongoing activity and opportunity in bricks-and-mortar real estate and hotel event spaces.