Region. Accor takes over Mirvac's hotels

The French hotel operator, Accor Asia Pacific, will takeover 48 hotels in the Mirvac Hotels & Resorts, including the management of The Sebel Parramatta and The Sebel Resort & Spa Hawkesbury Valley, in a deal worth $327 million.Mirvac signalled the sale of the portfolio, in June, as part of a consolidation of its business into the commercial and retail sectors, leaving hotels deemed as non-core.

Parramatta. 'Obvious location is Parramatta'

Below is a letter, by Bruce Hyland, Daleys Point, in the Weekend Edition, of The Sydney Morning Herald, Dec 17-18.

Michael Fox’s suggestion that the main auditorium at the Opera House should be upgraded “to a state-of-the-art” multi-purpose space as originally envisaged by Joern Utzon Letters, Dec 16) fails to grasp that such a concept was and always will be fundamentally inappropriate.

If we are to have a proper theatre that can accommodate opera and lrge-scale popular music productions, it will have to be built from scratch, and the obvious location is Parramatta.
Here is an opportunity for the state government to take a bold decision to establish the nucleus of a new arts complex at the geographical centre of Sydney.

It will mean a long overdue upheaval in the attitude of eastern suburbs patrons of the arts and possibly, some rethinking of public transportation links to the north shore, but the long-range benefits are potentially immense.

Eastern Creek. Move questioned

The NSW Greens will seek to force an investigation of the former Labor government’s decision to spend millions of dollars to help the V* Supercars race move from Eastern Creek to Sydney Olympic Park, according to The Sydney Morning Herald.