The former Camden High School site has been sold by Colliers on behalf of AEH Retirement Living.

Sales agent Nick Estephan confirmed that it had been sold to “a consortium led by experienced senior living operator, HT Retirement.”

The expectation was around $23 million. As we reported here, AEH originally purchased the site for $7.5 million in 2007 and had announced plans to build a 54-unit village.

Chief Operating Officer, Michael Rabey, said AEH intended to sell only a separate section to cover their extensive remediation costs of the school site, but eventually “could no longer ignore the option of finding a new owner for the whole site to take it forward”.

Most units for AEH’s initially-planned Camden Central Lifestyle Estate retirement village have already been purchased, and Mr Rabey said AEH was committed to assisting the new owners to finish the project.

AEH has developed one village, Sugar Valley Retirement Village, on the outskirts of Newcastle.

AEH MD Retirement Living, Nicholas Playoust, is a Vice President of the Retirement Living Council and one of the driving forces behind the voluntary Code of Conduct development.

HT Group is Paul Singer’s business which has been involved with retirement village developments for over 20 years. His Mount Gilead Estate on the outskirts of nearby Campbelltown has been building and selling an average of nine homes a month, every month, for the past three years. The estate has land for 1,100 homes.

They also have Gibraltar Park at Bowral in development. Stage one opened in December with 40 units sold and occupied.

HT is now in demand as a design, construction and management partner for village operators looking to fast-track projects.

GM Operations (and ex-CEO of the Retirement Village Association), Andrew Giles, gave a case study last week at our LEADERS SUMMIT where HT is building retirement village apartment blocks in six months.