Gold Coast development: Sunland’s Soheil Abedian, Max Christmas and Norm Rix reveal post-COVID-19 future
Three of the Gold Coast’s most prominent developers have revealed what the next five years hold for the city and whether we can expect a boom or bust.
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Three of the Gold Coast’s most prominent developers have revealed what the next five years hold for the city. Soheil Abedian, Norm Rix and Max Christmas tell Andrew Potts what they think will happen after COVID-19.
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SOHEIL ABEDIAN
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THE global political situation has tremendously changed, irrespective of the coronavirus situation.
Just look at what is happening in the Middle East, between Iran and Saudi Arabia, the issues of Syria, Libya and Yemen, Brexit, the issue of America which has isolated itself and the Cold war which is emerging between the west and China.
However, it is different in Australia and if you look close to home you will see that the coronavirus has now given Queensland an unbelievable advantage over our major rivals of Victoria and NSW.
The Gold Coast is in a far better position than Brisbane because we are a relatively smaller city which is a tourist destination, we have unparalleled shopping centres, massive investment in our movie industry. Most of all, the dynamic DNA of our city is based on construction and tourism.
It is my prediction that the Gold Coast will be final frontier in the world once COVID passes.
I have no doubt in my mind that once the world’s borders reopen we will be flooded with people from all over the country and planet who will want to work and live on the Gold Coast.
The climate for this will be right and everyone will love to be here.
We are a city relatively removed from violence, political disparity and a place every single person would desire to be.
I was born in the Middle East, educated in Germany and worked in Australia. I have three diverse cultures and have been to every part of the world you can put your finger on.
With this in mind I can say that nowhere in the world, not even Monaco, can compare to the Gold Coast.
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NORM RIX
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RIGHT now the market appears to be growing but I believe it will slow down seriously in the next six months.
I think we are in for every tough times.
Even at this stage I would like to see the council, state and federal governments consider incentives for developers to keep going.
My company has basically closed down and right now we are just concentrating on Pimpama city.
We are not actively looking for more land right now because of the downturn.
Council should look at reducing infrastructure charges on developments.
In my view this is something they should seriously look at while the state should consider reducing land and payroll taxes further.
This downturn will be very serious and we made it through the global financial crisis because council reduced infrastructure charges and acted quickly at the time, as did the state.
This time my feeling is they should not wait for the downturn to happen, they need to do this right now.
Unfortunately I believe they will also have to open up new land sites to be developed, along with incentives so these projects can go ahead.
We don’t want to have a slowdown or to see people out of work - we want the Gold Coast to be the leader it always has been.
Ultimately there is work to be done here on the Gold Coast.
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MAX CHRISTMAS
THE thing which built the Gold Coast is our fabulous weather.
We have to look at the bright side – the weather, the health of the community and the modern city we have if you look outside.
It looks just fantastic and it will attract more people to come into the area with new ideas and this will happen in the next two years.
In the meantime everyone just has to do the best they can.
In my view the future has never looked so bright because after this scare I think people will be coming up here and bringing money with them.
They’re not going to be coming up here to buy a house with no deposit.
First you will see them coming from Sydney and Melbourne.
Eventually we will get people coming in from the Middle East. Emirates were flying here before the crisis and I think the Arab countries remain quite solid, as does New Zealand and the Pacific Islands.
With this downturn, I think you will see Australia become more efficient and we will see the Americans come pouring out of their country.
If the tax structure changes here you will see the number of Americans coming here to settle increase.
We will be viewed favourably because of our relative safety.
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