Gold Coast development: Budds Beach site of 46-storey hotel proposal set for auction this week

A site once planned for a giant hotel tower which was to become its suburb’s biggest tower is back on the market

A BUDDS Beach property venture that five years ago was aiming for the sky and had billionaire developer Bob Ell fuming is heading for the block – the auction block.

The site of a 46-level tower that would have been the tallest in the suburb but never has been built is on the market, and not for the first time.

It’s being auctioned on Thursday in the wake of its American owner reportedly knocking back an $8 million offer during a prior sales push.

Laura Gnibus has owned the 2130sq m site, which counts the Marriott and Sovereign hotels as neighbours, since 2002-03 and last tried to exit it in 2019.

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Drawing of the Budds Beach tower that never eventuated.

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The 55-year-old Maryland-born investor is believed to have spent $3.2 million assembling the four-title holding, which fronts Oak Ave and cul-de-sac Acacia Ave.

Among the buildings on it is one called Elle Place which, coincidentally, is on the doorstep of the sprawling riverfront family compound of Bob Ell, rated a $1.98 billion man in a rich list last month.

Bob was spitting chips when the 46-level tower, with its 210 apartments and two-level penthouse, was approved in 2016.

He planned to fight the tower approval in the Planning and Appeal Court but later dropped the idea.

No-nonsense Bob earlier said the city council should put people before profits and that many Budds Beach residents had been living in the area quietly all their lives.

“They expect the council to do better than just approving a development that never will be built.”

That prophetically has been the case to date.

Developer Bob Ell.

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Laura has been investing on the Gold Coast for 20 years or so and has tasted high living first hand.

She in 2018 sold a penthouse in the Sun City tower for $3.75 million – she bought it during the GFC for $1.74 million.

The green light for a high-rise that would look down on the 32-floor Marriott wasn’t the first approval Laura had gained for her holding — in 2010 a 19-level building was given the planning nod.

Her attempt two years ago to exit her site seemingly acknowledged that her lanky building might not be a goer.

She was seeking either an outright sale or to exit the site via a joint venture between an investor and construction group Multiplex.

The mooted plan for a hotel, the result of a preliminary Multiplex feasibility study, envisaged a 20-level building with 200 rooms.

It was suggested an international operator was in tow.

The site has been put on the market.

Perhaps that operator was the Marriott chain, which was entertaining the idea of bringing a new brand to the Gold Coast.

Any buyer of the Gnibus site, when it is auctioned at the start of July, could be facing some tough competition in the apartment market, with a wave of development building at the northern end of Surfers.

Melbourne’s Tim Gurner, in tandem with funder Wingate, is planning a $600 million project with up to 600 apartments on a nearby city block.

A little further away, on the northern side of Ferny Ave, partners David Wang and Tim Gordon are working up plans for a possible three-tower venture on another whole block.

Then, on The Esplanade, “High-Rise” Harry Triguboff is planning twin high-rises overlooking the ocean.