Sotheby's Australia Chairman Mr Geoffrey Smith and Chief Executive Officer Mr Gary Singer and have paid $4.2 million for levels seven and eight of the strata office building at 41 Exhibition Street for what will eventually become the Melbourne headquarters of the up-market auction house.
The company has already begun moving into the temporary accommodation it leases on the upper two levels of the handsome nearby "Palazzo" style Anzac House at 4-6 Collins Street owned by the Returned and Services League until the Exhibition Street property is completed for occupation next September.
The move mark a return to conventional wisdom of global auction houses being headquartered on the main streets at the big and glamorous ends of town.
This tends to be the preferred scenario around the world with auction houses keen to attach their name to a prominent building.
But unlike parallel cities such as Toronto, both venues taken by Sotheby's Australia will serve as more than head offices.
Sotheby's Australia Senior Executive Officer Mr John Keats says auctions will be held in both. This includes decorative arts although this specialty includes bulky, difficult to unload (in busy city street) decorative arts.
In a surprise move that may well be unrelated, the company's highly experience decorative arts specialist, Ms Jennifer Gibson, has left the company and could not be contacted for comment.
The big auction houses used to hold their major sales in the ballrooms of mid city hotels with the now defunct Southern Cross Hotel near the Sotheby's properties a favourite.
But that was when the trade had a bigger role in the auction business and was better represented in town.
Christie's first offices in Melbourne in the 1970s were in Collins St with auctions held at hotels and then at the Age Gallery in Spencer Street.
The then McKillop Street city-based Leonard Joel's, without global attachments, however, paid little respect to the CBD when it came to its glamour auctions, as these were held in the Malvern Town Hall from the 1960s through to the 1990s.
Christie's moved out of town, as much of the antique and art trade had done, in 1989 developing duel use properties in South Yarra.
Before Sotheby's Australia rental commitment to the converted Armadale Theatre in which it has conducted auctions for 20 years Sotheby's Australia's precursor also held auctions in Melbourne hotels.
Sotheby's current move to the city which is already underway has still surprised the auction industry.
In the light of restrictions on haulage and parking, the industry is still tending to think of it as at least in small part a property play by Sotheby's principals.
Insisting that auctions will be held in both venues including the smaller and tighter Anzac House, Mr Keats says "We look forward to contributing to the diverse cultural and economic life of Melbourne."
Mr Singer, as a former deputy Lord Mayor who has enjoyed an intense interaction with the life of the city, would certainly endorse that.
Sotheby's Australia will occupy 560 square metres of the Collins Street building against a substantial part of the 1400 square metres it is vacating at Armadale.
But less space is needed to hold auctions these days, except at single owner or estate sales which in any event are usually held on the vendors' or beneficiaries' properties.
The rise of telephone and lately Internet bidding and the proliferation of auctions have stretched the industry's ability to attract interest a little too far.
Leonard Joel's has found that the younger generation are happy to bid electronically or just leave bids, even if these, increasingly in the present economic gloom, are now often below the lower estimate.
Jewellery, which has become one of the more obvious successes of the new Sotheby's Australia regime as a franchise operation, has attracted bigger, but not over-capacity crowds.
Couples particularly come to savour the pleasure of joint conspicuous consumption at sales over which the retail trade used to rule the roost.
The more limited in terms of space and lift-equipped temporary premises at Number 4 to 6 are historically well situated.
They are at what was once known as the "Paris end of Collins Street" due to its early attraction as Melbourne's premier gallery and coffee house precinct.
This has changed somewhat although the Joshua McClelland Print Room (JMPR), where some of the biggest art deals of the 20th century were done, is still situated there, opposite Sotheby's temporary premises.
Another doyen of art dealing in the neighbourhood, art dealer Dr Joseph Brown was next door to the JMPR and (for a while) Christie's.
Like others he became a refugee to one of the city's several art and antique zones in South Yarra.
These too have shrunk with the antique industry in particular.
The proposed permanent Sotheby's Australia head office on levels seven and eight of the 21 level strata office building in Exhibition Street at the north-west corner of Flinders Lane is still in this old art precinct.
The permanent quarters are near the landmark building office towers 101 Collins Street and Collins Place.
The building is being developed by the Royal Australian Institute of Architects which will occupy the lower four floors of the building.
Exhibition Street was the site of the old Southern Cross Hotel where the late Mr Julian Sterling also held court on art deals of the century at his Southern Cross Gallery.
The moves does not appear to address the reluctance of private consignors due to parking restrictions and city traffic, to drop by with paintings and other objects for valuation
Specialists could go out to see them at home but industry insiders say that that clients might still be reluctant to call auction house representatives as it might appear to impose an obligation to take their services and expose other objects in their house to view.
The grand duchessing and charm for which the industry, and particular Sotheby's, is noted may well overcome all that.
Sotheby's has vacated a property which served well as an auction facility and might make a brilliant choice for a competing auction house like Bonhams Australia to develop a counter strategy.
But the rent appears to have been a factor for Sotheby's and the industry is not in an expansive mood.
