Urban Puts Collingwood Co-Living Hotel Up For Sale

A Melbourne inner-city hotel building has been put on the market by its developer barely a year after opening.

Developer Urban has listed its lyf Collingwood hotel, which sits within a larger mixed-use project at 42 Oxford Street, Collingwood.

The lifestyle co-living project was opened in May, 2022, comprising 105 rooms. The project’s larger mixed-use element contains boutique office spaces and two restaurants. 

The col-living element’s shared amenities include a communal kitchen, social lounge and guest laundry.

There are also 35 apartments in the building that are not included in the sale.

The hotel is near Collingwood’s Smith Street, which was voted the Coolest Street in the World in 2021 by Time Out. 

The Ascott Limited, one of the largest hotel groups in the Asia-Pacific region and based in Singapore, will continue its lease of the hotel under the co-living brand, lyf.

▲ The reception desk at co-living hotel lyf Collingwood.

CBRE Hotels’ Tom Gibson, Michael Simpson and Scott Callow will handle the sale with Gross Waddell ICR’s Danny Clark, Michael Gross and Glenn Ye. 

Gibson said Melbourne’s hotel market was one of the nation’s best performing.

“Melbourne has proven its resilience as a hotel market in 2023, emerging as one of Australia’s strongest RevPAR [revenue per available room] growth markets after a 30.8 per cent increase for the year-to-date through July 2023 when compared to the same period through 2022,” Gibson said.

An expression-of-interest campaign will close on October 5, 2023. 

Elsewhere in Melbourne, the Jackalope Group has listed the St Kilda-based Prince of Wales hotel while SP Setia has finished construction on the dual tower project on Exhibition Street with one tower soon to be home to the Shangri-La hotel.