Property Group unveils new downsizers resort tower
LONDON: A pocket size exclusive apartment project is to be targeted at baby boomers and downsizers.
The nine-storey tower, known as Malo, is being pitched to the council by prolific developer Barry Morris, who has held the 607sq m site for more than 15 years.
It will sit between two other Morris towers, Qube and Synergy, on Jubilee Ave.
Mr Morris said the project was the culmination of long planning for the site.
“This is the final stage of the holding which began with Synergy and was followed by Qube and, in this case, we were conscious of doing something relatively small,” he said.
“We didn’t want to be, ‘do another large tower right next door to these buildings which have only been completed in the past five or six years’, so it would not have been appropriate.”
The tower will have 16 three-bedroom units across nine storeys, plus three levels of underground carparking.
It will be aimed entirely at the owner-occupier market.
Mr Morris is also putting the finishing touches on a giant tower project planned for a Gold Coast Highway site at Burleigh Heads. The 25-storey and 198-unit project will be unveiled this month.
A battle of ‘presidential’ proportions is tipped for control of a tired tower on the beachfront on Surfers Paradise’s southern side, a strip poised for a development wave.
The President is a 13-floor building that rose above the sand 50 years ago.
The 1533 sqm chunk of land it sits upon has become a rather juicy piece of real estate, given the developer action on the Northcliffe-Garfield Tce strip.
That ‘chunk’ potentially is worth $30 million or more.
The President, for several years, has been eyed by property types licking their lips over its position.
This time around two parties have emerged that appear to want to add the 34-apartment building’s site to their portfolios.
One is a Victorian development group, in tandem with a funds manager.
The other is Devine Investments, owned by Brisbane-based former home-builder David Devine.
It emerged in December that some ‘stake-building’ was going on in the President.
A one-bedroom apartment that changed hands for $240,000 in early 2020 sold to someone who appears to be linked to the aspiring Melbourne group.
The price for the level 10 property was exactly $1 million.
Three days later Devine Investments emerged with a $1.3 million buy on level five.
It appears the Melbourne group has since put a foot on other apartments.
The property body corporate chairman is ex-bankrupt Graham Spottiswood best known on the Gold Coast for a giant home built on the riverfront in Southport’s TSS precinct and seized by the Commonwealth Bank.
Son Andrew, via company Cotlew Lodge, owns a President apartment, bought for $430,000 in 2018.
The Melbourne group, if it succeeds in securing the President, will be making a Gold Coast development debut.
That’s not the case with 74-year-old David Devine – he has two up-market beachfront Gold Coast tower projects looming.
One of them, Royale, is planned on the site of an existing high-rise a block to the north of the President.
Several out-of-town development groups have rushed to the Northcliffe-Garfield beachfront strip over the past two years, with land prices cresting $20,000 a square metre.
The sites they have secured are earmarked for exclusive apartments, in at least one case in a building with $3 million-plus starting prices.
The momentum has been maintained by the Flannery family’s KTQ group, which last week introduced a bit of flair with plans for a 42-floor tower.
Seren will have a 60-room adults-only hotel on its lower levels, with 60 apartments on the other floors.
The 2026 sqm Flannery site has been patiently put together over two decades and at a cost of $19.3 million.
Today it’s probably worth more than double that figure.
At the end of the day, there will be no winner in a battle for the President unless one of the contenders throws in the towel.
Any victor will need to own all 34 apartments because, under Queensland law, an amalgamation can succeed only if 100 per cent of owners will sell.
