Fraternity Abandons Sale Of Car Park

Illawarra Mercury

Saturday May 10, 2008

By PAUL McINERNEY

PLANS to sell the car park of the cash-strapped Fraternity Club to help retire a $2.5 million loan debt have been temporarily shelved.

Earlier this year, the club called for expressions of interest from potential investors interested in redeveloping the 6161sqm site for residential and commercial purposes.

But the car park site is the subject of a flood study by Wollongong City Council, as part of a broad review of the Fairy Creek-Cabbage Tree Creek catchment area, which was severely impacted by wild storms in 1998.

If the study should identify the car park as a high-risk area, then the council won't allow any significant commercial redevelopment of the area.

Yesterday, the council's senior flood-plain management engineer Pas Silveri said the study of the catchment area was complex and was expected to take at least a year to complete.

He said it was open to the club to engage its own engineers to undertake an independent assessment of the car park site if they wished to speed up any potential sale process.

In March, real estate agent Leigh Stewart indicated the car park would be sold in seven separate lots and had attracted considerable interest.

"The council has given us preliminary information from the study and as a result the car park is now temporarily off the market until we can reassess the implications," club director Stuart Jackson said.

"However we remain hopeful and there are two or three people interested in the site and we are still talking to them."

Mr Jackson played down the importance of the sale to the club, saying "delicate negotiations were under way for a new loan at sensible commercial rates that may make any sell-off of the car park unnecessary".

© 2008 Illawarra Mercury

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