Gold Coast Development: Sunland put Labrador KFC site on the market to focus on other projects

A leading Gold Coast developer has dumped plans for a luxury tower and put its blue-chip site up for sale. And it’s already attracting plenty of interest from the market.

THE Gold Coast’s leading developer has dumped plans for a luxury tower as the city battens down the hatches for a blow back from interstate markets.

Sunland Group will sell the former KFC site at Labrador as it sheds unwanted assets.

It comes just days after the Bulletin revealed the number of development applications and building approvals had plummeted in the past year in the shadows of a national downturn.

Artist impressions of Sunland's proposed Marine Parade tower at Labrador. Picture: Sunland Group

Sunland founder Soheil Abedian, the man behind icon projects such as the Q1 and Palazzo Versace, said the company was downsizing its portfolio to focus on its already-underway developments, including its $1.3 billion The Lakes precinct and $250 million Hedges Ave tower.

“Sunland is concentrating on delivering these projects and balancing our portfolio,” he said.

“We thought this was the limit to which we could sell to the market because we have witnessed around Australia contractions in the market in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane.

“Usually the Gold Coast is two years behind those.

Sahba and Soheil Abedian. Picture: Tertius Pickard

“We have witnessed a slowdown in the market in the past 12 months, so this is why we are pushing ahead with these other projects.”

The Labrador site is the third property Sunland has put on the market in the past three months. This month the company revealed it was selling the balance of its Pimpama housing project, the Heights, while in October it announced plans to sell its leasehold of the Mariner’s Cove site at The Spit.

The former Labrador KFC was knocked down to make way for the project. Picture: Amanda Robbemond

Sunland bought the Labrador site more than four years ago and planned to build a 35-storey tower. In August it filed a revamped development application for a 16-storey boutique building instead.

An expression-of-interest campaign for the 4258sq m Marine Parade site will be launched next month, to close on February 28.

The sale will be handled by Ray White Broadbeach.

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Sunland had long planned to build a tower on the site. Picture: Sunland Group

It comes as the city braces for a potential downturn in the wake of tight lending conditions.

Gold Coast City Council figures show the number of development applications fell 13.4 per cent in the first quarter of the new financial year, compared to the corresponding three-month period last year.

More alarming is the 69.5 per cent decline in plumbing applications, which are made by developers as a precursor to construction and are seen as a bellwether for the strength of the building industry.

Industry leaders rejected suggestions of a prolonged downturn, saying the decline was in line with national trends and they expected the city to bounce back in the new year.