Beautiful Tamworth was the first place in Australia to install electric lights.

These days it holds the first place in the hearts of country music fans.

One of the largest inland cities on the continent, it has become the country music capital of Australia with the annual Tamworth Country Music Festival in late January; the second-biggest country music festival in the world after Nashville, Tennessee.

Tamworth, which is about 420km north of Sydney, is also regarded as the National Equine Capital of Australia because of the high number of horse events held in the city and the construction of the world-class Australian Equine and Livestock Events Centre, the biggest of its kind in the Southern Hemisphere.

Accommodation is a huge industry in the city of more than 65,000 people. with visitor numbers swelling for all the major events.

The specialist national brokerage firm HTL Property is marketing Tamworth’s popular City Sider Motel and Serviced Apartments, located on Marius and White Streets in the heart of the city’s Central Business District.

Nic Simarro and James Carrick, directors of HTL Property, are handling the sale exclusively via an expression of interest campaign.

The motel is positioned on a significant land parcel of 5970 square metres and favourably zoned B3 Commercial Centre. The property comprises 41 suites and serviced apartments over five separate lots. Additionally, a near new commercial kitchen and restaurant fit out exists for the successful purchaser.

At the moment the City Sider offers 39 spacious suites and two 3-bedroom serviced apartments.

The quality accommodation options include deluxe queen rooms, deluxe twin, family, spa, standard double/twin, standard queen, and two-bedroom rooms.

“High performing accommodation offerings in major regional centres rarely become available to investors” Mr Simarro said, “particularly one that provides the ability to redevelop, whether entirely or in stages; offering investors an endless list of value-add opportunities.”

Some of the options for new owners include the refurbishment and repositioning of the current offering to increase tariffs and ultimately trade; as well as significant development upside in the form of residential, medical, commercial office and/or additional rooms.

The zoning of the 5 lots (B3 Commercial Centre) supports residential, medical and commercial office developments.

The property enjoys close proximity to Charter Hall’s Tamworth Square Shopping Centre and the vibrant Peel Street, offering a range of restaurants, bars and shops.

In addition, the proposed new $128m Performing Arts Centre will be easily accessible from the western boundary of the property.

Mr Simarro said a mix of residential, medical and commercial office space proposed for the property would only complement Tamworth’s CBD further.

The Kamilaroi people lived in the Tamworth area before European contact, but in 1818, British explorer John Oxley passed through the Peel Valley and said it would be impossible to find a finer or more luxuriant country.

The first sheep stations and cattle stations in the area were formed in the 1830s with John Macarthur’s Australian Agricultural Company winning a lease of 127,000 hectares.

The first Australasian Country Music Festival was hosted in Tamworth in 1973 by radio station 2TM, which has led to the extraordinary success of the Tamworth Country Music Festival – a celebration that runs continuously for 11 days.

Fifteen years later the city saw the rise of the 12 m (39 ft) high Golden Guitar, a symbol of the town's country music roots.