Aware Super, the majority owner of Oak Tree Retirement and 25% owner of Lendlease Retirement, has spent $70 million plus on an abandoned hotel in Melbourne.

The former four-star 203-room Bayview on the Park hotel, on almost 6966sqm of land opposite Albert Park, will be turned into a build-to-rent project in partnership with fund manager Altis.

Aware Super, which purchased 70% of Oak Tree in 2017 and paid $420 million to buy into Lendlease Retirement in February this year, won a fierce bidding war for the site which will now be turned into more than 300 units for essential worker affordable housing.

The purchase boosts Aware Super’s pipeline in the emerging build-to-rent sector in Australia to almost 1,400 units and its investment in affordable housing to more than $900 million.

“In fact, we are one of Australia’s largest build-to-rent developers, with several other sites at various stages of development and completion in Sydney,” said Aware Super chief investment officer Damian Graham.