STORY OF A BUILDING

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LIX, Issue 17909, 13 October 1932, Page 9

STORY OF A BUILDING

INVESTORS’ UNLUCKY DEAL SYDNEY NEWSPAPER OFFICE The mournful note in the Sydney real estate news recording the sale of the Daily Telegraph building for £IOO,OOO is perhaps the end of a tragic dream, says the Sydney correspondent of tho Argus. The original Daily Telegraph accumulated much money. Part of it was invested in the purchase of the Metropolitan Hotel, on the corner of King and Castlereagh streets. The newspaper company did 1 not plan to trade in liquors, but it hoped later to erect a building that would overlook every other building in Sydney. The hotel was demolished, and the great newspaper office arose. The newspaper, although possessed of substantial financial resources, went on the down gi'ade, and ultimately it passed to new nroprietors, to appear in another form. The building was then purchased by a group of investors in Sydney for £305,000. About £40,000 was expended on a plan to convert the building into a hotel. A company known as the Savoy Hotel Company took it over. The company failed, and the building reverted to the original ownership.

The tenants had all been ejected when the hotel project was launched, and the enormous expense of rates and taxes had to be met without anv set-off in earnings. Tenants procured later did noE pay enough to meet the interest on the cost of the incomplete alterations. A sale at over £200.000 less than the first sale is n shock, but it is no guide to real estate values in Sydney.