On the QT: Graham Burke, lead player in Village Roadshow, buys office on Gold Coast

The lead player in Village Roadshow plunging into theme-park businesses Sea World and Movie World, is taking a ride on the rollercoaster that is the Gold Coast property market.

GRAHAM Burke, the lead player in Village Roadshow plunging into theme-park businesses Sea World and Movie World, is taking a ride on the rollercoaster that is the Gold Coast property market.

The 76-year-old Village veteran is stepping down as CEO of the Melbourne-based group at the end of the year and he might well have decided to take some of his retirement savings north.

34 Thomas Drive, Chevron Island. Picture: Jerad Williams

Graham and a Turkish-born fellow called Mehmet Unal have bought an office building at the eastern end of the Chevron retail area.

The three-level 34 Thomas Drive building has cost the partners $4.1 million.

It seems a major part of the top floor is to be used for a call-centre group that counts Village among its clients.

Graham’s arguably one of the longest-serving CEOs in Australia — he’s been in the role for 31 years.

In total, he’s been with the Village people for an unbroken 62 years.

He started work at 14 as a ticket collector and floor sweeper at the town hall pictures at Ararat in country Victoria and by 23 was top man at Village Drive-In.

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Village Roadshow chief executive Graham Burke. Picture: David Geraghty / The Australian.

Graham’s exit from the CEO’s role — he will remain on the board — was announced in February against a backdrop of virtual feuding between chairman Robert Kirby and brother John over asset sales.

It will be interesting see what sort of a financial ride Graham and Mehmet get out of their Chevron Island buy.

They have bought the property for little more than it cost to build 30 years ago.

The glass-faced green building’s sale, and the buyers’ identities, no doubt will draw more than a passing interest from one Scott Perrin, former lawyer and an initiator of the float of Billabong International.

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Graham and Mehmet have bought at Chevron Island. Picture: Jerad Williams

Scott, these days farming cattle in Victoria, and his then law-firm partner, Greg Pointon, embarked on the building in 1988.

They built it in a joint venture with Pyramid Building Society director and former AFL star David Clarke via company Grass Burner.

The 1012 sqm site cost $1.35 million and the Leighton construction job another $2.5 million, taking the all-up cost to $3.85 million.

There also were consultant bills and borrowings at a time when interest rates hit 17 per cent.

When the building was completed in 1990 it was strata-titled, the Perrin Pointon practice took the middle floor, and for some time the then State Bank of NSW occupied the ground floor.

Among owners of strata titles was a former US senator, William Hernstadt, who in 1998 bought an apartment in Main Beach’s elite The Ocean Isles property from receivers who had completed the building.

The purchase of 34 Thomas Drive has been made via company 73 Nerang Street from two sellers who between them owned all the strata titles.

The company is jointly owned by Graham and by Mehmet’s Thomas Drive GC.

Meanwhile, Graham will soon have some new fun to enjoy when he visits the Gold Coast.

He no doubt, as CEO, had major input into Village’s just unveiled plan to spend $50 million on a New Atlantis precinct, with three new rides, at Sea World.

MACAU casino boss Loi Keong Kuong, who in early 2018 paid $90 million for the oceanfront Soul Boardwalk retail centre in Surfers Paradise, is believed to have a tentative foot on the nearby Circle on Cavill retail-office area.

EG Funds paid $40 million for the Woolworths-anchored Circle property in 2011 — seven years after it sold for $103 million.

The Loi camp in March popped up as a member of a consortium buying the beachfront site earmarked for super-tower Spirit.

THE sell-off of a complete apartment tower overlooking the ocean could be looming, with a lengthy push to get all owners on side close to success.

The tower, built in the early 80s, long has been eyed by developers who all have ended up putting an amalgamation in the too-hard basket.

Three major oceanfront properties have sold since 2015 — the Surfers Royale tower and unit blocks White Horses at Burleigh and Nobby’s Outlook at Nobby Beach.

THE owner of the lacklustre Sorrento Shopping Village finally has found a tenant for space that’s sat empty since the departure of Thai restaurant Sukhumvit.

The new arrival, who’s yet to move in, also is believed to be a restaurant operator, this one with a Japanese and Korean bent rather than Thai.

The centre, on a 6000sqm-plus Bundall Rd site fronting Bundall Rd, was bought by JEB Holdings for $4.25 million nearly 25 years ago.