UTAS’ City Block Site For Sale

The former K&D site in Hobart has been put up for sale, offering the rare sight of an entire city block being available.

The site includes the former hardware store alongside a leased office building on Harrington Street, which is anticipated to sell for over $30m and is set to be one of Tasmania’s largest transactions in 2025.

The expansive 11,800 square metre site at No.103 Melville St and No.159–163 Harrington St is just a few hundred metres from Hobart’s main retail precinct and is one of the most significant commercial offerings to hit the Tasmanian market in years.

The property is for sale via international expressions of interest closing on 28 August. It is being jointly marketed by Claude Alcorso and Matthew Wallace of RWC Tasmania along with Matthew Wright and George Wilkinson of Burgess Rawson from CBRE.

The block was purchased by the University of Tasmania for its city move, which is now under a cloud. The university paid $9.8M for the property in 2015.

Housing activist group YIMBY Hobart is calling on all parties to step in and secure the site for the public good, before the opportunity is lost to car parks or big-box retail.

“In addition to a significant housing build, there is an opportunity for the site to become a social and cultural hub for everyone living, working, and visiting the Hobart CBD,” said spokesperson Susan Wallace.

She expressed concern that “a generational opportunity to transform the city” could be wasted and that the university, Tasmanian Government and Hobart Council have a collective responsibility to avoid this outcome.

YIMBY envisions those entities working together to lead a process that would result in a “suitably high-quality development.”

The SaveUTAS group said all remaining UTAS properties in the CBD should be sold.

An article about the sale that appeared in News Limited publications The Mercury and Real Commercial failed to even mention the university being the current owner of the site.

Featured image above courtesy CBRE.

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