Sandpiper: Robert Hsu buys Broadbeach tower in $15.5m deal

A leading business figure has bought an ageing Broadbeach tower for $15.5m, taking his property spending in the area to nearly $100m.

Taiwan’s Mr Bubble Wrap clearly isn’t worrying about a hot Broadbeach property market, like his product, ‘popping’.

Robert Hsu has just lifted his spending in the suburb to close to the $100 million mark.

The founder of the Polycell group has bought a controlling stake in long-in-the-tooth beachfront tower Sandpiper.

That move has included paying $15.5 million to the team which two years ago set out to amalgamate the Old Burleigh Rd tower, Brisbane property player Peter Priest and his Trenert group.

The Polycell founder’s spending on property in Broadbeach has been going on for two years.

He started Polycell in Taiwan in the 1970s and it has become a global success story.

The Sandpiper building in Broadbeach.

The group today operates multiple plants in Australia, along with others in Taiwan, New Zealand and the US.

The 71-year-old Robert’s opening Broadbeach gambit was a tower site in Surf Parade and that was followed by the purchase of a Queensland Ave office block.

The biggie came last year when he outbid a field of heavy hitters to snare the oceanfront Voyager timeshare resort with a $45 million offer.

New target Sandpiper was built more than 40 years ago and has 48 apartments.

The attraction for developers is its 1828sq m oceanfront site.

Peter and Trenert were the pacesetters in trying to buy Sandpiper, where some of the owners have been ensconced since the 1980s, with one of them buying in for $68,000.

The Priest mission started in 2021 and by earlier this year 25 apartments had been bought or put under contract prior to a legal dispute with a rival developer and now selling the holdings to a Polycell company.

Sandpiper is a building in central Broadbeach.

The Polycell buying has not stopped and the ‘bubble wrap’ team is believed to be approaching ownership of 75 per cent of the Sandpiper apartments.

It might be happy to sit at that figure, given that a proposed Queensland law change would enable it to go to 100 per cent without having to fight to get remaining owners to sell.

The agents that were doing the buying for Trenert, L.J. Hooker Broadbeach’s Matt Conduit and Ross Lukin, are doing the work for Polycell.

Meanwhile, Robert’s Polycell group is chalking up fast sales at its first Broadbeach development, The Rochester, a $275 million tower on the corner of Surf Pde and Britannia Ave.

Polycell, on the heels of paying $12.15 million for the 1813 sqm site, spent $22.5 million buying the 16 Queensland Ave office bock.

The Voyager buy was in October but Robert, who has a Broadbeach pad, has yet to indicate his plans for the property.

The Trenert team, with its Sandpiper ambitions over, has bigger fish to fry – its preparing to lodge a development application for five towers on 1.3ha in the Olympic precinct at Brisbane’s Woolloongabba.

HARRY HAS OTHER PLANS

Harry Triguboff atop the 76-floor Ocean tower

Harry Triguboff, apartments king, has walked away from a $26 million attempt to add to his latest beachfront Surfers Paradise site after a couple of owners shunned a buyout offer.

The target was the 27-unit Monaco low-rise on The Esplanade, a building which is on a 1687sq m elongated block on the southern boundary of Harry’s $67.5 million May buy.

The 90-year-old developer is preparing to lodge plans for that 3534sq m holding, which includes The Shore tower.

MERMAID FOR MCMASTER

Brian and Lauren McMaster. Picture: Regina King

Brian McMaster, who made a quick $4 million at Burleigh Heads two years ago and moved to the river, has spent $14.1 million at Mermaid Beach.

The McMaster name was kept under wraps after the July 1 auction of the Hedges Ave beachfront house of industrial estate developer Tony Stephens and wife Alicia.

Tasmanian Brian, who sold an old hillside Burleigh home to developer the Spyre group for $11 million, is believed to have a buyer for the family’s $11.6 million Broadwaters Waters riverfront property.

DOUBLE THE DEAL

Clint and Jenny Karananos with Celine Dion.

Jenny Karananos, who put a controversial double block on the market at favourite investment address the Sovereign Islands, has found a $3.6 million Chinese buyer for half of the holding.

The 2120sq m two-title Brittanic Cres site was the subject of a court dispute, settled in April, when a deal with a buyer at $4.95 million failed to go ahead.

Indications are that Jenny, who paid $2 million for the land a decade ago, also has a buyer for the balance of the site.

Originally published as Sandpiper: Robert Hsu buys Broadbeach tower in $15.5m deal