Demolition of haunted house and antiques building ahead of stage 2 of Coomera Connector plans
One of southeast Queensland’s most infamous abandoned buildings has been reduced to rubble after demolition crews moved in this week.
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Demolition crews have moved in on a well-known vacant building on the Pacific Mwy between the Gold Coast and Brisbane.
The secret demolition works on the Logan City Council’s former Antiques Style Building, located on a 26ha site acquired by the state government in 2019 for the Coomera Connector, started this week, catching many locals by surprise.
The controversial two-storey red brick emporium was one of South East Queensland’s most iconic vacant buildings, and at various stages had been touted as the site of a wave pool, zoo and even a haunted house attraction.
It had also landed a council in court and been a factor in a CEO’s resignation.
Logan City Council Mayor Jon Raven remained tight-lipped over the future of the site but said the council had resolved earlier in the year to demolish the building “as it is no longer suitable, or safe for use”.
“The former antiques building is in a corridor that the state government has set aside for the Coomera Connector project,” he said.
“I’m looking forward to seeing what the future holds for this site – as it’s the perfect spot for a high visibility attraction.”
Fire broke out at the site in February, with claims it was part of a ploy to raze the site in preparation for the northern section of the Coomera Connector.
The large building, once the site of a popular antiques outlet before morphing into a council-run convention centre for a year, had been left to ruin by Logan City Council since 2008.
The council asset triggered at least three court cases and legal wrangles with prospective leaseholders including the former Alma Park Zoo and a haunted house proprietor battling the council for access to the vacant building.
Angry ratepayers also waged war with the council to allow access to the building, which cost the council an undisclosed amount believed to be in the millions, and then upwards of
$12 million in lost rent and in security fees over the years to keep vagrants and squatters out.
The building, which came complete with a spiral marble staircase, ceiling-to-floor marble bathrooms and toilets, ballrooms, a “cowboy” western-style saloon bar; convention rooms, an indoor wood-fired bakers oven and its own bakery.
In August 2018, Logan council announced a smaller, 18 hectare lot at the site, would be redesigned as a wave pool and the building renovated as an indoor skate park, gym, restaurant and surfboard factory.
After the $10m wave pool plans were publicised and the value of the site appreciated above inflation in November 2018, the council started negotiations with the state government over the sale of the land for the northern section of the Coomera Connector, gazetted in 2019.
But Tunnel Vision Wave Pools’ $10 million plans for the 18.4ha site off the Pacific Motorway took a dive after Transport and Main Roads Department unveiled its proposal to use the land for the second stage of the Coomera Connector and M1 upgrade in March 2019.
The land, which Logan council sold to its now defunct investment arm InvestLogan in late 2017, was handed back to the council in 2019, before InvestLogan chief executive Todd Rohl announced his resignation that year.
The site has also been the subject of a long-running bitter $14 million court battle against the council brought by Alma Park Zoo, which was granted development approval in February 2014.
The zoo said the council breached a contract, signed in 2012, when it terminated the agreement because the zoo was not built within a certain time frame.
The zoo said the council had not completed infrastructure works in time.
The Alma Park Zoo matter was finalised in 2019, the same year the council gave businesswoman Jaye Rose of Haunted Attractions Australia informal support to her plan to open the venue up as a haunted house attraction.
The council gave her approval in March 2019 on the condition she received state government approval, despite the state government already mapping the site into plans for the Coomera Connector.
Ms Rose, who has since cut her losses with Logan council and with the State Transport Department, set up her business Evilcorp in Brunswick St, Fortitude Valley, said ratepayers were furious that the venue had sat vacant for so long when the council had paid top dollar for the site.
“It was bought and maintained using ratepayer funds and deliberately left to become a decrepit eyesore instead of being used until the point of sale and generating rental income for ratepayers,” Mr Rose said.
“The council knew in 2018 that the state was highly likely to gazette the land in 2019 for the Coomera Connector but it still continued to tout the use of the site as a multimillion-dollar wave pool venue and haunted house site just to bump up the land value so it would get a higher compensation.
“It’s just more government wastage and we are angry that there is no easily accessible information about plans for the site and its future.”
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