The club is now noted as "under contract", after being listed for sale with Sydney agents CBRE late last month, marketed as "a local icon with significant history and presence serving the local area for over 60 years".

The 2.44 acre site was offered for sale via an expression of interest campaign which closed on Tuesday, October 20, and apparently attracted 123 inquiries from investment and property groups.

The club recently notified its members it had received three firm offers for sale proposals and had accepted one.

Eden Fishermen's Recreation Club CEO Andrew Terry indicated prior to the site being listed for sale that the board was continuing to explore options to sell the main site, with the intent of using those sale proceeds to develop a purpose-fit new licensed venue at their Eden Gardens Country Club location.

CBRE agent Xavier Rahme confirmed an offer on the freehold club had been accepted, put forward by a Sydney based buyer who plans to redevelop the site.

"They loved the site, absolutely loved it," he said.

"It's likely to lend itself to a tourist or residential development."

Mr Rahme said the Sydney-based developers do projects all over Australia and further information such as the sale price and buyer should be available in roughly two to three weeks if exchange proceeds smoothly.

In the recent notice to members on behalf of the board of directors, Mr Terry said escalating costs associated with repairs and maintenance of both sites had now become disproportionate to capacity to increase annual revenue growth.

"The recent closure of the wharf shopfront is a confronting reminder of the catastrophic risks that aged, neglected buildings can present and the Fishermen's Club built circa 1953 is not that far away in terms of fit for occupancy standards," he said.

The board outlined at their AGM in August that the most achievable option remaining to ensure survival of the club was to consolidate operations into one single fit-for-market location and use the future land development funds to develop a dedicated social and sporting facility.

Recently, the board conducted a meeting to consider the three sale proposals and according to the recent notice to members: "The club directors unanimously agreed the board has not yet had sufficient time to clearly undertake the level of due diligence to adequately quantify and access the level of information required to accept either or any of the offers as currently presented."

The club is now in the process of seeking estimates and advice before entering into a commercial agreement but has agreed to enter a non-binding Heads of Agreement with the preferred investor, giving the board a two-month period to complete investigations prior to making a final decision.

The board confirmed the preferred proposal bid is consistent with property valuations completed by CBRE in October 2019 when the decision was first considered to put the site to market.

Members were notified a preliminary master plan design for the new Eden Country Club will be presented to the board in November, at which stage concept plans should be publicly exhibited.

"Based on the club's ability to successfully resolve all these high level issues, construction and completion of the new club would be expected to be finalised before summer 2021 with no expected transfer of normal business activity from the Recreation Club until that time," Mr Terry said.

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