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Talks between Queensland’s two biggest superannuation funds continue that would create the nation’s largest pension fund could stall some significant future plans for one of the parties.

WITH the news of merger talks between two of Queensland’s largest superannuation funds — QSuper and Sunsuper — there's plenty of speculation and trepidation over the future of their long-range accommodation plans.

Sunsuper has a 13,000sq m to 15,000sq m office requirement in the market and have narrowed its Melbourne Cup field of candidates for its future headquarters to just three.

One option is to stay at the Milton Green office park which it owns with AMP Capital Diversified Property Fund.

Seymour Group sells a 65ha parcel of land in the Yatala industrial precinct to Frasers Property who will masterplan a new estate

Commercial Confidential: Brisbane property, leasing news and gossip

Queensland superannuation funds QSuper and Sunsuper in merger talks

The two other options are Lend Lease’s 1 King Street development site at the RNA Showgrounds in Bowen Hills and Dexus’ 26-level tower 123 Albert St where Rio Tinto will leave in a couple of years for the nearby Midtown Centre.

At this stage Sunsuper is looking at April, 2023 as the deadline for a relocation.

Last year QSuper signed off on a 15-year lease over 17,000sq m in the Charter Hall owned Brisbane Square Tower, taking 17,000sq m.

Brisbane Square Tower to the right and an artists’ impression of Charter Hall’s 36-storey tower that was knocked back by the Brisbane City Council.

It decided to consolidate its four locations into that space that will be vacated in Suncorp when it moves into its new headquarters at 80 Ann St in 2022.

It was a deal that took plenty of twists and turns with the super fund originally planned to go to Shayher Group’s Brisbane Quarter but the deal fell over after Charter Hall Group offered an alternative deal to go to a new development in Brisbane Square at the top of the Queen Street Mall.

However, Brisbane City Council scuttled that alternative development plan and Charter Hall found an alternative location in the Brisbane Square Tower.

According to QSuper and Sunsuper as this stage they were in “preliminary, non-binding discussions”.

We hear at this stage it’s business as usual. But if they do decide to merge the combined entities would be looking for a new headquarters of between 25,000sq m and 30,000sq m.

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THE Seymour Group’s sale of a 65ha parcel of land in the Yatala industrial precinct to Frasers Property stirred up a bit of interest last week.

They bought it for $20.5 million from the Hester family early this year and over that time completed quite a bit of work on it.

However, Seymour Group senior director Daniel Farquhar says one of the big tasks they had to confront was what to do with Australia’s largest bird of prey’s nest on the site.

Wedgetail eagles generally have four or five nests and the chicks in the one on the site well and truly flew the nest before work started to remove it.

“We relocated the nest to a nearby riparian corridor (an area of vegetation with a small creek) on the site,” Farquhar says.

“As far as we know this has never been done before.”

Relocating the wedgetail eagle nest by the Seymour Group to a green zone in its 65ha land parcel in the Yatala industrial precinct.

And with wedgetail eagle nests being about 1.8m across, 3m deep and weighing up to 400kg it was a complicated task.

The Seymour Group employed a number of experts sand tarted the process knowing it would be a difficult task. There had been a few Bald eagle nests moved in the US with mixed results.

They used booms and cranes to get up to the nest which they secured through struts before lowering it down and relocating it in a cradle.

Relocating the wedgetail eagle nest by the Seymour Group to a green zone in its 65ha land parcel in the Yatala industrial precinct.

Farquhar said one the surprising things about the nest was that while there were no wedgetail eagles in the nest it contained a thriving colony of termites ... as well as a squirrel glider in a safe haven at the bottom. That too was relocated.

At this stage they’re hopeful the eagle will return to the nest.

“We’ve been monitoring it for a fair while and we will have to see,” Farquhar says.

“But we’ve done everything we could for it to be a successful relocation.”

The wedgetail eagle and the nest which the Seymour Group relocated to a green zone in its 65ha land parcel in the Yatala industrial precinct.

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A GOLF course on Brisbane’s western fringes — which has been resurrected by the owner of the Kooralbyn Valley Golf Resort — is on the market.

Real estate agent and investor Peter Huang has put a $5 million plus price on the Brisbane River Golf Course at Karana Downs.

Huang bought it for $2.2 million in 2017 when it was named the Karana Downs Golf Course.

Huang, who is also the founder of Yong Real Estate, said the property sits on 40ha with 471m of direct frontage to the Brisbane River.

The course has had a chequered history spending two years in the golfing wilderness, closing its doors after being inundated in the 2011 flood and subsequently falling into ruin amid a developer’s failed bid to carve it up into 112-lot housing subdivision.

The course was revived and reopened in 2013.

Huang said during the recent pre-lodgement meeting, the Brisbane City Council endorsed the retirement village development for around 70 villas or 147 mixed villas and apartments using the extra spare land surrounding the existing 18-hole golf course.

Huang says he intends to concentrate on his $500 million integrated golf resort development at Kooralbyn Valley.

Peter Huang in 2017 at the Karana Downs Golf Course which he bought for $2.2 million.