On the QT: $1.2b Spirit supertower is being offered to select developers

THIS $1.2 billion Surfers Paradise supertower was meant to be the Gold Coast’s tallest building but there are clouds over its future. However a new deal being done could save the project.

Spirit is planned by developers Forise Holdings.

THE Chinese group aspiring to build a super-tower on the site of the former Iluka high-rise overlooking the beach in Surfers Paradise might well have become dispirited.

Property sources say the Spirit site quietly is being offered to select developers.

Two major groups have confirmed they have been sounded out but won’t specify whether that is as outright buyers of the site or as potential partners in development of the approved 89-floor tower.

SPIRIT ‘BACK ON TRACK’

Forise Holdings' $1.2 billion Spirit tower.

TENDERS YET TO BE RELEASED FOR SPIRIT

The agent who handled the $65 million sale of the site to Forise (Chinese name Fu Hua) is believed to be behind the off-market approaches.

Roland Evans, principal of the Canford Property Group, won’t comment on whether he has a role and Forise is staying mum.

One of the parties offered the site said it would not work at 89 levels and 30 or so floors would have to be “lopped off” to make it viable.

Should Forise go down the outright-sale path, it seems certain to take a financial bath.

One property observer has suggested the group might have spent north of $130 million on the Spirit project, a figure he says is well and truly “unrecoverable”.

SPIRIT TOWER SELLING FAST

The Spirit penthouse.

The DBI-designed Spirit always has been intended as a flagship project for Forise and it has come with flagship prices.

The penthouse carries a $41 million tag, more than four times higher than the Gold Coast penthouse record.

That Forise might be heading for the door, so it can return capital to China, is no surprise.

A shadow has hung over the project since it was suggested that Forise parent Fu Hua was enmeshed in China’s peer-to-peer lending crisis.

INSIDE SPIRIT’S PENTHOUSE

Spirit would be the Gold Coast’s tallest tower if built.

HOW MUCH IT COULD COST TO LIVE IN SPIRIT

It was mooted last month that Forise could have lost $400 million in the crisis, a figure that might prove to be understated.

The row Forise has chosen to hoe on the Gold Coast with Spirit never has looked an easy one since the Chinese Government last year started to clamp down on capital outflows.

That move, along with tighter bank lending in Australia, has made it immensely more difficult for buyers from China to fund purchases.

A proposed unit inside Spirit.

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There were indications last year that Forise itself might have funding issues – it went to Melbourne-based real estate debt specialist Maxcap to borrow money to build Spirit’s $40 million six-level basement.

That debt reportedly has since been moved to the New York-based Fortress group.

The basement has been completed but there has been no sign of Forise putting the construction contract out to tender.

For a period some of the consultants used by Forise were hanging out for payment, a situation apparently remedied in September.

Agents marketing the 479-apartment Spirit said their commissions were running late but also had been paid.

It also emerged that the Spirit role of Hickey Management, headed by former law practice principal Tony Hickey, had ended.