Family Selling Geelong’s Sphinx Hotel After 50 Years

It isn’t every day a hotel sporting an ancient Egyptian theme complete with a 15m-high Sphinx comes to market.

And while the locals know all about it, it might be a surprise to learn that said hotel isn’t on the glitzy Gold Coast but rather in Victoria’s second city, Geelong.

Cited as Geelong’s best-performing gaming and entertainment venue by the agents, The Sphinx Hotel has been listed for sale after more than 50 years of operations by the Ramia family.

The hotel at 2 Thompson Road on a 15,000sq m freehold land parcel has 67 electronic gambling machines, multiple bar areas and function rooms, an outdoor beer garden, a TAB and a recently renovated sports bar, as well as Pharaoh’s Bistro.

It has 16 accommodation rooms of various configurations and approvals in place to develop a further 24 rooms.

The sale includes a dual-lane Thirsty Camel branded drive-through bottle shop and a licence capacity for 1010 patrons.

In 1998 hotel owner the late Ray Ramia erected the 15m-high polystyrene replica of the Great Sphinx of Giza atop the hotel. The property also has a pyramid and statues on the theme.

Ray, who died in 2016, arrived in Geelong in 1947 to take his ailing grandmother, Mary, and her daughter, Annie, home to Lebanon.

They refused to leave so Ray stayed on as her carer and built a career as a tailor in the 1950s and 1960s. He and a friend built the Golf View Hotel in the late 1970s, which became the Sphinx Hotel.

▲ The entrance to the bistro at the Geelong hotel.

CBRE Hotels senior director Scott Callow is handling the sale via an expressions-of-interest campaign due to close on April 11.

The hotel is available as either a new long-term lease or a freehold going concern and with a new long-term 20-year lease with two 20-year options.

The rental will be set at market, ensuring the rental amount is in line with the asset’s financial performance.

Callow said strong interest was expected from a range of investment segments looking to gain a significant foothold in Victoria’s tightly held gaming market.