November 6, 2026 — 5:00am
Capital gain
The exclusivity of spending time in Qantas’ Chairmans Lounge may be about to wear off.
Plaza Premium Group, the global operator of airport lounges and hotels, is injecting $20 million into expanding and upgrading its lounges in Australian airports, including opening the first independent pay-per-use lounge at Sydney Airport’s T2 domestic terminal.
It will offer departing passengers lounge access regardless of airline, ticket class or frequent flyer status.
Airport retail is one of the busiest sectors as more brands look to lease space to cater for travellers with time to spare before they fly.
PPG, which arrived in the country a decade ago, has three major developments under way but the prime one, the new independent domestic lounge at Sydney Airport, will be a 113-seat, 545 sq m facility scheduled to open in Terminal 2 by early December.
Its opening will coincide with the completion of Sydney Airport’s $200 million T2 redevelopment, one of the terminal’s most significant upgrades in more than 30 years.
PPG’s other two investments will be a complete rebuild of its Brisbane International lounge and a new domestic lounge at Cairns Airport.
Roche family
The Roche family’s pub group has sold the Railway Hotel in the regional NSW town of Armidale for about $9 million.
The late Bill Roche and his wife, Imelda, established Nutrimetics in Australia in 1968. They sold the skincare and cosmetics company to Sara Lee in 1997 and established DB Pubs, an investment fund focused on hotels.
The Railway will be added to publican Jim Knox’s portfolio. Knox owns the nearby Whitebull Hotel, also in Armidale’s retail precinct.
DB Pubs acquired the hotel at 222 Rusden Street in late 2021 from the pub’s freehold owner, Brett Groundwater, and its operator, Charlie Redmond’s Hospitality Dynamics, for about $8 million.
The hotel generates about $80,000 in weekly revenue, equating to annualised turnover of about $4.2 million. Built in 1879, the Victorian-style pub features a crested parapet and extensive iron lacework, with a modern extension at the rear of a 3819 sq m site.
It’s the nearest licensed venue to the region’s largest employer, the Armidale Base Hospital.
The property is underpinned by a 3am licence and 13 poker machines together with more than 60 car spaces. It comes with 800 sq m of surplus land and an existing development approval for a 16-room motel.
The sale was negotiated by HTL Property’s Xavier Plunkett and Ben Kennedy.
Growth corridor
Private developer Silverstone Project Seven has sold a large-scale residential subdivision site at 2 Harkness Road, Oakville, to a private investor for $14.5 million.
Located within Sydney’s north-west growth corridor, the 20,234 sq m site has development approval for a 51-lot Torrens title residential subdivision, representing a sale rate of $284,000 per approved lot.
Agents said the campaign was conducted against a backdrop of increasingly selective developer acquisition activity, with development costs, funding requirements and pressure on project margins continuing to influence land acquisition decisions across western Sydney.
CBRE’s Ray Ahsan and Lord Darkoh negotiated the transaction.
carolynannecummins@gmail.com
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Source: The Sydney Morning Herald · Carolyn Cummins
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