Guy Grossi is selling Bottega restaurant
Melbourne restaurateur Guy Grossi is selling the site of Melbourne’s corporate lunchtime haunt Bottega on Bourke Hill.
The premises are expected to fetch $5 million.
Mr Grossi’s family paid $2.38 million for the property in 2001 and Bottega opened its doors the following year.
The 1880s-built two-storey building at 72 - 74 Bourke Street, located between Grossi Florentino and Pellegrini’s Espresso Bar, is owned by Mr Grossi, his wife Melissa, sister and business partner Liz Rodriguez and her husband, Grossi executive chef Chris Rodriguez.
It’s a 198 square metre site with eight metres of Bourke Street frontage.
The property sale comes after the Grossi family opened Pezzo on Flinders Lane, expanding its food empire.
The venue is run by restaurateur Dennis Lucey, the owner of Bistrot D’Orsay on Collins Street. He pays the Grossi family $211,940 to operate the premises.
It will be sold with a lease to Mr Lucey,
Savills Australia agents Clinton Baxter, Nick Peden and Benson Zhou are selling the property.
The sale is being conducted through an expressions of interest campaign closing May 9, and the property is being marketed as an “extremely rare CBD freehold investment”.
Mr Baxter said the property was a real find because opportunities to secure prime freehold properties below $10 million in the Melbourne CBD were increasingly rare.
“Bottega has become something of an institution among the city’s foodies so we expect strident competition among prospective buyers,” Mr Baxter told the Australian Financial Review.
He added that there was “ample room for growth in the years to come” with current rental well below market levels.
The property is expected to attract a mix of local, interstate and international investors.
The real estate is expected to be enhanced with new major projects including the new 235-room Le Meridien hotel on Bourke St, S P Setia’s $800 million Sapphire project containing a 500-room Shangri-La hotel, and QIC’s 80 Collins St redevelopment.
Leon Gettler - 12th April 2018
