Gold Coast development: Surfers Paradise ‘bomb sites’ finally set to be built with new towers
Infamous Surfers Paradise bomb sites earmarked for billions in stalled high-rise projects are to be unlocked, kickstarting the Glitter Strip’s most dramatic facelift in decades. SEE WHAT’S PLANNED >>>
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INFAMOUS Surfers Paradise bomb sites earmarked for billions in stalled high-rise projects are to be unlocked, kickstarting the Glitter Strip’s most dramatic facelift in decades.
Owners of major party precinct landholdings, including the Sultan of Brunei, are understood to be preparing new plans to submit to council in coming months.
The renewed interest in Surfers, a result of the city’s booming real estate industry and securing the 2032 Olympic Games, comes a week after a giant $800 million three-tower mega development was unveiled by SPG Land and Gordon Corp for one “bomb site”.
City leaders confirmed talks were ongoing but they were hopeful of finally seeing the “embarrassing” empty blocks activated after decades of inactivity.
Sites to be revamped include:
* Ex-Iluka site, corner of Hanlon St and The Esplanade, earmarked for $1.2 billion, Spirit tower.
* 1.14ha site bound by Norfolk, Pine, Oak and Ferny avenues at Budds Beach, once earmarked for Sapphire a $1 billion two-high-rise supertower project put forward by failed developer Ralan Group.
* A $30 million, L-shaped 7558 sqm site, corner of Surfers Paradise Boulevard and View Ave, bought by the Sultan of Brunei nearly 25 years ago.
* 1.05ha “Vomitron” site owned by Hong Kong billionaire and Aquis boss Tony Fung and Chinese companies CCCC International Holding and Tandellen, at one point earmarked for four-tower masterplanned project.
Gold Coast development: Giant $800m three-tower Surfers Paradise mega development revealed
Colliers residential director David Higgins has spent more than 30 years in the real estate industry and said there was growing interest from the sector to seeing the sites developed.
“The city’s amazing transformation is underway as we head into an Olympic decade where major public and private infrastructure will reshape the city,” he said. “A lot of those sites have been sitting empty for decades and there are many interstate and international visitors who want to know what is happening with them. They cannot believe they are like that.
“Now is the right time for these key sites to be brought to the market.”
The Gold Coast’s property market has been red-hot for a year, with more than 16,000 people moving to the city from other states to escape lockdowns.
A new Knight Frank report reveals 91 per cent of stock marketed in the first three months of 2021 was sold, with the bulk of new developers in the city’s south in boutique-style luxury projects.
There have been comparatively few in Surfers Paradise, with SPG’s Ferny Ave project to be the most high-density project to be built in the Coast in 20 years.
The “bomb sites”, long undeveloped blocks of land, have been a bane since the mid-1980s.
Many were once home to old hotels and houses, cleared more than 30 years ago to make way for new developers which stalled in the early-90s recession.
The only major site to be subsequently developed was the former Chevron Hotel, empty for a decade before becoming the home of Chevron Renaissance.
Surfers Paradise councillor Darren Taylor said new players were “coming out of the woodwork” with undeveloped site plans.
“There is a lot of interstate investment which is focused on Surfers Paradise,” he said.
“Covid has helped put the Gold Coast on the map and the flavour of these developers is local and interstate which is really promising.
“By developing these empty bomb sites we have a chance to really improve this area.”
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