Sam Arnaout adds another development to his list on the Gold Coast

An interstate capitalist with an appetite for Coast property is the new owner of an iconic beachfront tower, dropping $21k per square metre on the building.

SAM Arnaout, the man who steers Sydney-based Iris Capital, appears to have developed a strong and expensive appetite for Gold Coast property.

Back in July, Iris spent $58.5m to make its debut in the tourism capital by buying the so-called Niecon redevelopment package at Broadbeach.

Now Sam appears to have taken the group on a record-breaking trip to the beach.

Iris is believed to be the buyer, at a new Surfers beachfront benchmark figure of more than $21,000 a square metre, of The Premiere apartment building in Garfield Tce.

WHY THIS COAST VILLAGE SHOULD BE ITS OWN SUBURB

Add development of that site to the Broadbeach plan and Iris would have a near $1bn Gold Coast pipeline of work.

The eight-level Premiere, on 865sq m of land with a 20m frontage to the sand, was put on the market by contracting industry veteran Mick Power and wife Denise in August.’

The couple earlier had sold an adjoining parcel for $30m.

Their Premiere deal cements the Northcliffe-Garfield Tce strip as the hottest beachfront location in the country, with tower developers seeing it as a spot for rich-pickings.

Iris will be the fourth Sydney group to target the beachfront in the space of a few months, along with Brisbane house-builder David Devine.

The upshot will be a strip of cranes as beachfront apartments worth hundreds of millions of dollars rise beside the ocean.

The action might not be over, with ageing apartment building The President and its 1533sq m site in the mix for redevelopment.

The upshot of the sales this year is that long-in-the-tooth buildings Surfers Royale, the Garfield, and Anglesea Court will slide off the horizon.

They will be replaced by towers such as the Sammut group’s Coast and David Devine’s Royale, which will replace former timeshare tower Surfers Royale.

There’s obviously a demand today for expensive ‘beach chairs’ – the average price in Royale, which is going on a $45m site, is $3m.

The tower will offer residents right-royal treatment – it will include a concierge, a residents’ club with a cinema, library, executive lounge, bar, and a whisky locker, plus three swimming pools.

The lust for a high-end life by the beach was brought home quickly to the Sammut group when it launched Coast.

It sold more than half the building in three weeks – before the tower had won development approval.

The buyer of the $30 million Power site, Old Burleigh Theatre Arcade owner Weiya Holdings, is yet to reveal its plans.

Old Burleigh Theatre Arcade, Burleigh Heads. Picture: Jerad Williams

Stoyan Kiceec, the $19m Sydney buyer of Anglesea Court, has indicated he’ll build a 23-floor tower with 38 top-shelf apartments.

Iris Capital, before any deal on The Premiere, had its hands full at Broadbeach, where it’s planning an $800m twin-tower project.

It will demolish the Niecon Plaza and two nearby commercial buildings.

Iris, started in 1995, has a chain of hotels, has completed a long list of developments, and owns a couple of Hunter Valley wineries.

Meanwhile, the sale of The Premiere has left Mick and Denise Power, whose BMD group sponsors the Northcliffe Surf Club, at which their grandkids are nippers, with the problem of finding a temporary home by the beach for Christmas.

They’ve spent a record $15.5m for a double block in Multi-Millionaires’ Row but have yet to cement their plans for a house.