An upscale off-the-plan development is set to shake up Shepparton’s high-end accommodation market.

Set for completion in September quarter 2025, the 67-key Eden Hotel Apartments is being developed by IDS Developments to address the drastic shortfall in Shepparton’s premium business and leisure accommodation market.

Good quality hotels are lacking in Shepparton with the situation set to get worse. A 2023 Urban Enterprise report showed 84% of Shepparton’s business travellers stay overnight, compared to Victoria’s state-wide average of 67% but are underaccommodated by existing stock. By 2025, Urban Enterprise forecasts a shortfall of 164 rooms in Shepparton, representing 20% of present supply, of which 50% is aging 3-star hotels or motels.

Eden Hotel Apartments will attract an independently verified 4- to 4.5-star rating enabling it to command the highest room rates in Shepparton. Occupancy is expected to reach over 80% shortly after the start-up phase, if not earlier.

All of the hotel’s 33 apartments are under contract, mostly to local owner-investors. Nationwide accommodation property agency ResortBrokers has been engaged to sell the hotel’s operating rights, which are based on a management and letting rights model.

Architecturally designed Eden Hotel Apartments’ location on Maude St in Shepparton’s CBD, one block from Lake Victoria and parklands, will give the hotel excellent street presence.

Shepparton is the commercial centre and largest city of the Goulburn Valley, one of Australia’s most productive agricultural areas. Only two hours’ drive north of Melbourne, the town is a major transport hub of regional Australia with excellent road and rail connections to Sydney, Brisbane, Adelaide and Canberra.

The hotel includes three conference rooms, which will cater to the Goulburn Valley’s burgeoning SME and government sectors.

“Eden’s Hotel Apartments will capitalise on Shepparton’s booming high-end visitor market,” says IDS Developments Director Phil Petch. “There is currently no other offering of this calibre in Shepparton’s premium accommodation space. We are very happy with the way the development has been embraced.”

“Eden will be a highly sought-after opportunity,” says ResortBrokers Director Alex Cook who is handling the sale with fellow Director Tim Crooks.

“Eden Hotel Apartments will dominate Shepparton’s high-end business and leisure market. It will enjoy exceptional star ratings, the highest room rates in town and robust occupancy. With its exceptional quality, prime location and 50-year agreements that offer operators stability and security, we expect significant interest in this management rights offering.”