A consortium of three private investors has instructed Lambert Smith Hampton to sell a former hotel in Chesterfield, Derbyshire, in an online auction with a “reserve not to exceed” £1.5m.
The vendors of the 73-room Chesterfield Hotel are understood to be regular auction room traders who bought the asset from receivers in a private treaty sale.
LSH director and auctioneer Simon Riggall said the instruction indicated a “widening acceptance and take up” of online auctions. Previous online auctions offered by the firm have typically been for utility companies, public sector bodies and private equity clients.
Riggall said the key attraction of an online auction for the former hotel was the longer marketing period it allowed for an asset which offers redevelopment potential subject to planning. Bidding will not open until 23 October.
The property occupies a 0.33 acre site, including a car park, alongside the A61. It faces Chesterfield train station, which is expected to become an HS2 stop, and opposite the site of the proposed £340m Chesterfield Waterside mixed-use scheme. It is not listed.
Riggall said: “The owners came to us to put it into a ballroom auction. We felt it needed more than three weeks’ marketing.
“What we are trying to do by offering different ways of dealing with properties is employing the normal marketing approach but without the obligation for people to do their homework in a three-week time-frame. Potential buyers will want to speak to planners.”
He said the current owners had invested capital to make the property suitable for an interim income-generating use, perhaps as an HMO subject to licence. The car park and a roof mast produce £33,000 pa.
Bids for another online lot will open next week, on 17 July: the former officers’ mess at the famous RAF Coltishall, near Norwich, Norfolk, is offered with a reserve not to exceed £365,000.
The property includes the original listed 1939-40 block and later additions and is expected to go for residential use.
The RAF base was decommissioned in 2006.
To send feedback, e-mail julia.cahill@egi.co.uk or tweet @egjuliac or @estatesgazette
