Sebel Melbourne gone

I was trying to find an e-mail address for the Sebel Melbourne hotel this morning and had trouble finding their current website. They were previously a Mirvac hotel but changed hands when Accor purchased the Mirvac porftolio of hotels. The Mirvac website link no longer worked and when the Accor link failed as well I started to think something was going on.

I then found this article about the hotel closing:

CBD hotel closes doors, converts to apartments

February 20, 2013

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Kate Nancarrow

ACCOR'S Sebel Hotel at 398 Collins Street closed its doors on Saturday and in three weeks its 150 apartments will return to the control of 119 individual owners in a reversion-conversion the owners corporation manager has described as ''fast and a first''.

The hotel chain had held a 12-year lease on the apartments and suites within the heritage-listed 1876 former bank building but owners corporation manager Alf Musumeci, of L.R.Reed, said as the lease drew to a close the 119 owners, who had been part of an income-pooling agreement via the hotel's lease, felt they ''weren't getting the returns they'd hoped for'' and decided to regain control of their individual apartments.

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/business/cbd-hotel-closes-doors-converts-to-apartments-20130219-2epde.html#ixzz2LPSzYQr5


I've been disappointed by our lack of production in Melbourne post-GFC but when hotels are converting back to residential apartments due to disappointing returns you know the hotel market in that city is soft.