Gold Coast development: Aquis billionaire Tony Fung plans giant two-tower luxury Surfers Paradise project
Billionaire Tony Fung is back in the Gold Coast property game, with plans for a giant twin-tower project in Surfers Paradise. FULL DETAILS >>>
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BILLIONAIRE Tony Fung is back in the Gold Coast property game, three years after trying to offload key real estate interests.
The Hong Kong business mogul is about to lodge plans to build two high-rises in beachfront Surfers Paradise.
Mr Fung’s Aquis company plans to turn the ageing Pacific Point mid-rise on Ferny Ave near Narrowneck into 31 and 26-storey residential towers to capitalise on the booming property market.
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In 2018, Mr Fung put up for sale Pacific Point, the “Vomitron” site and his Soul penthouse in Surfers Paradise when the real estate market softened.
He has been a key player in town in establishing his horse stud farm in the hinterland, and his company’s sponsorship of the Gold Coast Turf Club and Gold Coast Titans NRL club.
Mr Fung declined to comment when the Bulletin approached him this week about his new project.
A development application will be submitted to the Gold Coast City Council this week for The Minette project.
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The high-rises will have 83 units between them, with the larger tower having 31 single-floor units while the smaller will have two apartments per floor.
It has been designed by international architecture firm Woods Bagot through its Brisbane office.
The design is inspired by the “modernist movement” of the 1950-70s era.
“The exterior takes its cues from the controlled and rational approach to the spatial planning and site-responsiveness of each apartment,” Woods Bagot associate principal David Lee said.
“Stirred by the beach house architecture of the Gold Coast, a suite of timber lined spaces will define the experience of each apartment, each of which will explore and echo the tenets of the traditional Queenslander and modernism in the subtropics.”
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Mr Lee said each floor plate “wraps itself around a climatically responsive ‘landscape room’ - a multipurpose, permeable indoor/outdoor space that interrupts the silo between apartment and landscape”
He said each apartment has its own ‘courtyard’ — a reconsidered version of the traditional apartment balcony, with verdant landscaping “integrated into the space through internal and external planters, to create a functional outdoor space that takes advantage of the subtropical coastal climate”.
Mr Fung began buying up the Pacific Point site in early 2016, amalgamating it at a cost of $24m.
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In December that year Aquis announced plans to build a $440m hotel overlooking Main Beach with five-world-class restaurants, 500-plus rooms and a wraparound pool with ocean views sitting on a glass-encased podium.
But while approved by council in 2017, the project did not get off the ground and in 2018 the site was quietly listed for sale.
A second attempt to market the site began in late 2020 but failed to get any takers.
But with the city’s real estate market booming again, Aquis has withdrawn the site from the market and dumped the approved hotel project in favour of the two residential towers.
Owners of major party precinct landholdings, including Aquis and the Sultan of Brunei, are understood to be preparing new plans to submit to council in coming months.
Aquis’ re-emergence comes a month after a giant $800 million three-tower mega development was unveiled by SPG Land and Gordon Corp for one Surfers Paradise “bomb site”.
Property Council of Australia Gold Coast president Matthew Schneider said the revival of the party precinct’s property market was a long time coming and came on the back of council’s underdevelopment Surfers Paradise masterplan, led by Councillor Darren Taylor.
“Proposals like this are a great sign of the underlying strength in the Gold Coast property market at present,” he said.
“These large sites at the northern end of Surfers Paradise are an important gateway to the heart of our city and it is exciting to see a number of them being put forward for high quality development proposals”.
“Their redevelopment will make excellent use of land in our urban regeneration corridor and will have a catalytic effect on the revitalisation of Surfers Paradise being led by Cr Taylor and the council.”
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