Former Olympian buys Coast shopping centre for $250m

A Sunshine Coast shopping centre has gone back to the future after it sold for up to $250 million to a former Olympic swimmer.

NOOSA Civic has gone back to the future with the man behind its construction, former Olympic swimmer Mark Stockwell buying the shopping centre back.

Reports are that Mr Stockwell paid up to $250 million to the Queensland Investment Corporation.

News of the sale emerged at a ratepayer public question and answer time in Noosa with Mayor Tony Wellington.

QIC failed in its bid to expand the Civic with more retail space after it took control of the property for about $200 million.

Cr Wellington was asked about any future expansion plans there and said "that's an interesting question".

"It's now been bought back by Mark Stockwell's business - it's a little bit of déjà vu," Cr Wellington said.

"We're opening the corridors of conversation to Stockwells to see what might happen."

Cr Wellington said in the planning scheme had "an idealised use" for the Civic site.

"There's a lot of land around the existing building footprint that is earmarked for further development and obviously Stockwells will be interested to see what's in the (new) planning scheme."

He said the company had been briefing the council on what they might want to do with the Civic, but the discussions were at the "very early stages".

"The good thing about Stockwells is that they don't just do shopping centres - they do all sorts of things.

"The problem we had with QIC was they really only looked at it as a potential shopping centre and nothing else, because that's their business model.

"Hopefully with Mark we can get some better outcomes that's not just more retail."

Mr Stockwell's office for comments but he is yet to reply.

The meeting was told the Masters hardware land site at the Civic had been sold, with the Spotlight chain owner the buyer, and council is waiting to find out what development application's going to come along.