Wests Group is selling out of its planned $160 million high-rise development in Newcastle's inner-city.
The registered club group announced plans in 2019 for two 14-storey residential towers on a triangular wedge of land in King Street now occupied by the Wests City car park.
The project, which includes one tower of apartments and another for seniors living, won development approval in March last year.
Colliers has now listed the 6600-square-metre block for sale as a "gateway" site with development approval in place for the two towers and 285 underground parking spaces.
Wests paid $19 million for the former Newcastle Workers Club site and adjoining car park in 2015 with plans to redevelop it for housing and an entertainment precinct. It could make money on the deal by selling off half the site with DA approval in place while keeping Wests City.
Skyrocketing construction costs and the prospect of rising interest rates are forcing developers to reassess some proposals, but it is unclear why Wests has opted to sell the CBD project.
The group's chief executive officer, Phil Gardner, is understood to be out of the country and did not respond to requests for comment.
Poker machine profits, a large part of Wests' business, plummeted in licensed clubs across Newcastle and Lake Macquarie in the second half of last year.
Data from Liquor and Gaming NSW show club pokie profits fell from $95 million in the six months to November 2020 to $57 million in the corresponding period last year across the two local government areas.
Planning authorities rejected Wests' proposal for a massive seniors living and aged care redevelopment at Wests Mayfield in 2019 due to its scale.
Mr Gardner said at the time that Wests would work on revising the plans, but these have not yet resurfaced.
The Wests empire includes six licensed clubs in Newcastle, the Newcastle Knights rugby league team, the Executive Inn and Gateway Inn hotels, The Anchorage resort at Port Stephens and the Balance gym chain.
The Newcastle CBD has a host of major apartment developments in various stages of planning and construction, including Thirdi's Dairy Farmers Corner buildings, St Hilliers' towers on the former Spotlight store site, DOMA Group's Huntington, Store and Merewether Street units, Horizon on the Harbour, GWH's Sky Residences, stage two of Iris Capital's EastEnd complex, MultiPart's Bowline apartments beside the transport interchange, Blake Organisation's Neufort building in Wickham and the Cambridge Hotel student accommodation project.
Many will compete for buyers in a market which could cool over the next year as interest rates rise.
Hunter and Central Coast Development Corporation is also poised to go to market in the next two months with its massive Honeysuckle HQ site on both sides of Honeysuckle Drive, a project destined to accommodate hundreds of new apartments.
