March 11, 2023 - National Retail Group

Crowdfunding aims to raise $3 million towards buying the Tote

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A crowdfunding campaign aims to raise $3 million towards the purchase price of Collingwood’s Tote Hotel, to preserve its status as one of Melbourne’s most celebrated live music venues.

The Tote was put up for sale with local agents Miglic Dean last week with a price tag of $6 million to $6.6 million.

One of the city’s best-known live music venues since the early 1980s, The Tote – formerly the Ivanhoe Hotel – is on a 665 square metre block on the corner of Wellington and Johnston streets.

North Melbourne’s The Last Chance Rock & Roll Bar is running a Pozible crowdfunding campaign. If successful in reaching its $3 million target, it is understood private investors would stump up the remaining $3-plus million to purchase The Tote. So far, the campaign has attracted pledges of about $50,000.

The pub is being sold with vacant possession. Owners Jon Perring and Sam Crupi said they had run out of the energy required to run the 42-year-old venue. The pair picked up the leasehold in 2010 after the pub almost closed due to onerous security requirements. Records show they bought the freehold from Chris Morris’ Colonial Leisure Group one year later for $1 million.

A lot has changed in Collingwood since then, with office and apartment towers gentrifying the once working-class industrial suburb.

Pubs have been selling at a significant premium in the past couple of years. Both factors mean there is plenty of angst among The Tote’s regulars, who fear they might lose the music venue to a hotel business development, or an apartment block.

Last year, there was alarm when Singapore-based investor YY Property paid $5.08 million for the Curtin Hotel in Carlton, opposite Trades Hall, with expectations that apartments would replace the pub.

However, YY Property renewed the lease of the rock venue operators.

CBD offices on block

Several CBD offices belonging to the founders of ill-fated co-working hubs operator Victory Office are on the market.

One of six properties owned by Dan Baxter in Victory Tower, at 420 Collins Street, and three boutique offices owned by Manisha Baxter, in 530 Little Collins Street, are for mortgagee sale through Gross Waddell ICR agents Richard Lowe and Alex Ham.

The Baxters owned a majority stake in Victory Office, a company they established in 2013 and listed on the ASX in 2019 at $2 a share. Co-working businesses generally lease office space, which is then sublet to individual users or companies.

Victory Office went into voluntary administration in November as rising costs, competition, COVID-19 lockdowns and disputes with landlords – including AMP Capital, Investa, Mirvac, Dexus and Zig Inge – eroded cash flow and the ability to pay rent.