Gold Coast development: What developers have planned for former Katie Page site
Hong Kong investors have secured a site near the Broadwater with big plans for what’s coming next after a proposed luxury tower was abandoned.
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HONG Kong investors have treaded, fat chequebook in hand, in Southport territory where the ambitions of ‘Fast’ Eddy Groves, of ABC child-minding fame, slowly were unrealised.
The investors have succeeded, via a company called Blue Dream, in making a blue-chip development site across the road from the Broadwater more than a dream.
But it’s not been as easy as ABC.
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Back in February the Blue Dreamers spent $3 million on land in Marine Pde, buying it from one of the nation’s highest-flying female executives, Katie Page of Harvey Norman.
The site, home to an older building with three flats and next to Sunland’s Lumiere tower, is 845 sqm and came with approval for a Page-inspired 16-level apartment building tagged Ripple.
The ‘Dream’ team subsequently decided it would be swell to swell the site and set about targeting Marine Central, the building on the northern side, which is on 812 sqm and also has a Central St frontage.
Marine Central, completed in the early 80s, comprises six single-floor apartments with sweeping views across the Broadwater.
Blue Dream, within three months of paying Harvey Norman CEO Katie, had signed up to buy three of the apartments from trustee company Alex Nelson for $2.247 million -- an average of $749,000 an apartment.
Property records indicate that since then, progress in securing the rest of Marine Central, was proving hard work for Blue Dream.
The owners who hadn’t sold apparently weren’t sellers at $749,000 and, according to one source, were singing out for north of $1 million each.
It’s believed that’s what they’ve just achieved.
Eddy Groves, the former milkman who headed the failed ABC Learning group, started his Marine Central mission 17 years ago.
He bought the top-floor apartment, in tandem with wife Viryan Collins-Rubie along with Sea World marine authority Trevor Long and his wife Wendy.
Prior to Christmas, 2004, Eddy snared, for $2.7 million, the three flats that made up the building between Marine Central and Lumiere – the property subsequently sold to Katie and now with Blue Dream.
Within two months he’d bought another Marine Central apartment but he never achieved full ownership of the whole building.
Hence any hopes he held of creating a 1600 sqm amalgamated site evaporated and he headed for the door in 2007.
Eddy’s sale of the three-flat property to Katie wasn’t the only business he did with a Harvey Norman executive.
Twelve years ago he flicked three titles in Broadwater frontage street Poinsettia Ave to Katie’s hubby, Gerry Harvey, for $11 million.
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Meanwhile, just what Blue Dream’s plan is for its Marine Pde site are unclear.
The 1657 sqm holding, assembled at a cost of more than $8 million, could take a project far more ambitious than Katie’s Ripple.
It’s not out of the question that the group might try to enlarge the holding to more than 4000 sqm by targeting a property at the rear that fronts Frank St – if it’s not too late.
The property is a long-time home to a Caltex servo and last year the fuel group spent $677,000 buying an adjoining house, giving it a 2500 sqm footprint.
There’s been a suggestion that Caltex has a buyer but, if that’s the case, it’s not Blue Dream.
BUSINESS NEWS
* BARRY Quaill, property investor, reportedly has a buyer for his near-riverfront mansion in Paradise Waters but at nowhere near the $10.5 million it was marketed at 18 months ago.
The suggested end figure for the tri-level Admiralty Drive home is in the mid-$7 million range.
Barry, who is trying to sell a Chevron Island site approved for a 46-level tower, and wife Pamela bought the 904 sqm site for $3.61 million in the bubbling market of 2005.
* TOM Tate, mayor and property dabbler, looks set to make a fresh attempt to unload the former Bruce ‘Kelly’ Small mansion at Sorrento.
Tom and wife Ruth last year tried to sell the property, along with an adjoining lot, as a potential eight-lot subdivision site.
That didn’t work, the lot’s since been sold for $1.52 million, and the Tates look poised for a January sales push for the house, which cost them $3.3 million in 2015.
* TONY Quinn, effervescent entrepreneur, is getting all his ducks in a row to put an industrial building on part of the former Gold Coast Bulletin site at Molendinar.
The former VIP Petfoods-Darrell Lea chocolates owner bought the property for $6.5 million a year ago via Popeye Paper and has demolished the Bulletin’s former offices.
The new building, described as for packaging and distribution purposes, would be on the former staff carpark.
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