Bunnings ditches plans for new warehouses on flood-plain land at Carrara on the Gold Coast

Bunnings has pulled the plug on plans to build a new outlet at Carrara after battling for four years to get the project approved. Here’s what went wrong.

BUNNINGS, warehouse giant, is a fighter but not always a winner.

The listed group, after a near four-year Gold Coast ‘bout’ over enlarging its presence in the city, has thrown in the towel and stepped out of the ring.

Back in 2016 it set the wheels in motion to build a 16,000sq m warehouse and garden centre backing on to the Palm Meadows golf course.

The flood-plain land at Carrara came with problems and Bunnings obviously thought they were surmountable.

Plans for the Bunnings Carrara warehouse, a follow-on from a Burleigh warehouse opened in 2014, were no walk in the park.

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Then, of course, there was the major issue of entry and exit off Nerang-Broadbeach Rd, which feeds into the major roundabout that also serves Gooding Drive and Robina Parkway.

A weary Bunnings, after battling for four years to get its plans approved, has pulled the plug.

Its conditional deal to buy the 10.8ha site, believed to be for in excess of $7 million, lapsed and the land is back on the market.

Bunnings says that while it’s decided not to pursue the project, the area remains ‘of interest’.

Its experience is not the first time developers have found getting a project approved on the Carrara land hard going.

The site’s part of a 16ha holding bought by former tennis champion Ken Rosewall, rugby league’s Rex Mossop, and other investors in the late 80s.

Tennis Legend Ken Rosewall was part of a group of investors that bought a 16ha holding in Carrara in the 1980s.

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Part of it was resumed for a new four-lane Nerang-Broadbeach Rd and some of it became home to the former Carrara Village shopping centre.

Nearly 20 years ago housing company Villa World was looking to buy it for $2.6 million but didn’t proceed.

The land was picked up for $2.5 million by companies associated with two Gold Coast residents – PlastaMaster business operator Eric Palyiris and former fast-food chicken shop chain operator Paul Kyriakou (he died in 2014).

Plans were lodged in 2006 for a project with 270 apartments spread across seven towers of from three to seven levels.

Bunnings has a large presence on the Gold Coast with stores at Burleigh and Robina (pictured).

The partners got a green light for their scheme six years later, but only after appealing to the Planning and Environment Court, and that approval still is in place.

That scheme involves buildings on an engineered platform and measures such as barriers that would come down to prevent flooding, on-site boats, and a helipad.

The consultants that went into bat for Bunnings contended that its plan – for a warehouse on piers — would have less of an impact on the area than seven apartment buildings.

For instance, it argued that its warehouse would have smaller footprint than the apartment buildings and would be 10 metres lower than those buildings.

The nails-to-flowers group did have one win, getting approval for access and excess points for its warehouse.

At one point an underpass had been suggested to get vehicles heading south on Nerang-Broadbeach Rd into the site.

That’s until someone realised that it was a flood plain and that cars can’t swim.

Meanwhile, spare a thought for former Colliers agents Geoff Lamb and Darrell Irwin who handled the ‘sale’ to Bunnings and waited nearly four years for a commission that never came.

Now two other Colliers agents, Steven King and Pat Cavanagh, along with Savills’ James Stevenson, have the property listed and a chance to kick a commission goal.