Gold Coast Development: First look at Jim Raptis’ new high-rise design for Main Beach site

Leading Gold Coast developer Jim Raptis has revealed his plans to build a high-rise planned for the a site overlooking the Glitter Strip's famous beach.

JIM Raptis, the so-called Rubber Man of the Gold Coast high-rise game, is planning a ‘facelift’ foray.

No, it’s not for the 73-year-old Greek-born developer personally but for what is described as an ‘outdated’ appearance of a beachfront suburb.

The Raptis name, which has sat atop cranes on an array of towers over more than 30 years, looks poised to appear at Main Beach.

HOW LONGBOARD INSPIRED NEW TOWER DESIGN

Artist impression of new Main Beach tower proposed by Jim Raptis.

FIRST LOOK AT COAST’S GIANT NEW HOUSING ESTATE

Next month the purchase, apparently for close to $9 million, of a site on the dry side of Main Beach Pde is due to settle.

The sellers are elderly Brisbane couple Steve and Diana Kaskabas, owners of a shopping centre.

They won the development nod in 2015 for a 25-floor building with 38 apartments and had been trying to sell the approved site since 2016 before successfully talking turkey to the Raptis camp a few months back.

It’s now emerged that Jim was not exactly awe-struck with the look of the Kaskabas tower, among other things, and has made plans for a building facelift.

BIG REVAMP PLANNED FOR COAST PUB

Raptis was said to be unimpressed with the tower’s design.

A request lodged before Christmas by Aloha Development Management, solely owned by Jim, to change the approval does not mince words.

“…. the previous approval, aside from being considered to be an unusual and somewhat unattractive design outcome, was not economically feasible in terms of design/construction arrangements or market suitability.”

The mooted Raptis changes are intended to produce ‘a far more attractive outcome’ and appeal to the Main Beach property market.

LUXURY TOWER PLANNED FOR SUBURBAN STREET

Jim Raptis.

Not only that, but the ‘new, modern and elegant’ building is tipped to modernise the character of an area that ‘displays an outdated built-form character’.

The Kaskabas site sits between two 1980s buildings – Spinnaker and Bougainvillea.

The planned Raptis changes to the approved Kaskabas building, apart from altering its appearance, include boosting the number of apartments to 82 and having parking in three basements, at ground level, and in two podium levels serviced by a car lift.

The Main Beach foray isn’t the first Raptis-mooted one.

The new design is far more modern than what had been proposed.

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Prior to the GFC the Raptis Group, which Jim heads and controls, paid $10.67 million for what’s known as the Midwaters site, also on the western side of Main Beach Pde.

Receivers took control of the land in 2008 as Jim’s listed group, not for the first time, was close to knockin’ on heaven’s door and the site was sold to a Heran group company.

Heran’s yet to start marketing a planned tower which, ironically, will compete with the Raptis camp’s one.

Meanwhile, the Raptis Group, which survived via a 2011 deal with its creditors, appears to be stalled in its latest bounce-back effort, having undertaken a sole project, townhouses, since relisting on the ASX in 2015.

That venture, at Springwood, was made possible by the injection of Raptis money into the group.

Meanwhile, Jim’s been happily sailing along personally, having built towers at Labrador and Biggera Waters and a hilltop apartment project at Carrara.

The Main Beach project should enable him to keep that momentum going – the suburb, until last year, hadn’t seen a new tower start in 12 years.

OTHER BUSINESS NEWS

Paradise Waters. Picture: Jerad Williams

* JOHN Dell, an under-the-radar Kiwi who has a home at Paradise Waters, is being mooted as the mystery buyer of the suburb’s most expensive house site.

A record $9.4 million deal on a Chinese billionaire’s three-title site at the end of Commodore Drive, next to mayor Tom Tate’s house, was cemented in November.

John, who in 2017 bought a $3.02 million Neptune Crt home, is a director of NZ’s Genesis Energy, contractor Higgins, and Unimarket Holdings.

Tony Fung. Picture: Richard Gosling

* A $48 million attempt by Honkers billionaire and turf club backer Tony Fung to buy the Equinox high-rise at the northern end of Surfers Paradise to enlarge an adjoining site approved for a six-star hotel appears dead in the water.

There’s apparently been no contact between the Fung camp and the owners of the 101 titles in the 40-year-old tower for months.

The owners aren’t waiting with bated breath – next month they’re embarking on a $1 million spruce-up of the building.

The proposed Cav's Tower.

* NICK Malloch, who popped up in 2018 promising to put some meat into apartment sales in a tower planned on the Cav’s Steakhouse site at Labrador, has resurfaced.

He’s running Bottega Property Group, formed in June, and is aboard a linked entity which has bought a unit block on 627 sqm in Broadbeach from investor Greg Craig for $3.25 million.

The Sydney-based Nick’s role at Cav’s tower Inspire apparently failed to inspire buyers to the point that building could start.