Despite having received Western Australian Planning Commission approval more than four years ago, the Riverside Pier Hotel project at Barrack Square has yet to get off the ground due to a failure to secure a stage two building licence.
Subiaco-based developer PH3 Property Group denies the $18.5 million project has met with delays due to problems securing finance, saying the project has been tied up in various levels of bureaucracy.
Original investors are believed to have put almost $15 million in mezzanine funding into the project through Kebbel Investments, a company directed by Simon Bell and Richard Beck and linked to collapsed developer Westpoint.
Kebbel, which changed its name to Finchley Central Funds Management in January last year, manages the investment scheme with PH3.
PH3 director Chris Hazebroek said the 86-unit hotel was fully funded and he was confident the group was only five weeks away from gaining its building licence for stage two.
Stage-one works still to be carried out include the installation of pre-cast ground floor slabs.
“This is the first private development allowed on the foreshore in a long time and we want to make sure it’s done properly,” Mr Hazebroek told WA Business News.
Mr Hazebroek said the group had considered entering into a joint venture arrangement with a private Malaysian investor last year, but the deal was no longer on the table.
“Our seed investors are happy getting their monthly payments and we’ve got some more Australian investors on board,” he said.
In two weeks, PH3 intends to take the strata units formerly to the market for between $390,000 and $700,000.
Mr Hazebroek said the hotel project would definitely go ahead and he hoped the government would make good on its foreshore plans.
A spokesman for the City of Perth said it had not received a program for stage one works, but had requested this once it became available.
The licence for stage two works had not yet been issued due to outstanding information requested earlier last year, he said.
