On The QT: Mimi Macpherson could see boutique Burleigh Heads apartments turn to rubble

A former whale-watching queen might see her pride and joy boutique luxury apartment building reduced to rubble if a property deal plays out.

MIMI Macpherson, a former whale-watching queen who submerged financially after a foray to the Gold Coast, might not want to be “watching” if a Burleigh Heads property deal plays out.

A boutique luxury apartment building which was her pride and joy when it was completed 17 years ago could become a pile of rubble.

Aspect on Burleigh, overlooking the ocean at 112 The Esplanade, is under conditional contract to a company which obviously sees its 1011sq m site as under-utilised.

That company is the Brisbane-based Spyre group, which is buying the building for $16.15 million if its due diligence makes the purchase stack up as a redevelopment proposition.

Mimi, the sister of super-model Elle Macpherson, built Aspect in tandem with Andrew Pappas and via company PM Developments.

Mimi is the sister of supermodel Elle Macpherson.

Aspect was designed to a nautical theme and was marketed as “a slice of oceanic elysium”.

The project became what Mimi later termed “a tough learning curve”.

The sail-shaped Aspect’s seven apartments and two-level penthouse did not exactly sail out the door – the first sold in 2003 and the last in 2007.

Mimi’s sojourn on the Gold Coast started after the multimillion-dollar sale of her Hervey Bay whale-watching business in 2000.

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The excitement over launching Aspect, with construction funding from Mark McIvor’s later-failed Equititrust group, gradually dimmed and her seas became somewhat choppy.

At one point Mark Jewell, former GM at the Sunland Group, was called in to give her a different aspect on Aspect.

During construction there was a dispute over payments and workers walked off the job.

Aspect’s Melbourne architect sued over unpaid fees in a case that lasted four years and ultimately led to PM Developments going into liquidation.

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At one point Mimi became involved in plans for a Southport tower called Luxe but she exited the mooted project before it was aborted and the site sold at half its original cost.

Aspect on Burleigh is under conditional contract to a Brisbane company.

It could now turn to rubble.

The ultimate ignominy came when Mimi faced a third drinking-driving charge in 2007 and then was bankrupted in 2008 with $8 in the bank and owing hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Spyre, the group doing its homework on Aspect, first set foot on the Gold Coast in 2016 when it bought a Broadbeach site and went on to embark on a 21-floor tower, Elysian.

The group, headed by Daniel Laruccia and Andrew Malouf, also has launched a boutique tower, Maya, at Kirra.

If it does decide to go ahead with its Burleigh buy, it will own a site with potential to take a far taller building – Aspect sits between the 15-level Element tower and the 17-floor Southern Cross building.

Spyre, in a best-case scenario, also could go to 17 levels.

The last new apartment building on The Esplanade was Barry Morris’s Boardwalk, which was completed 14 months ago and has 128 titles.

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BARGAIN ON BEACHFRONT

TONY de Leede, founder 25 years ago of the Fitness First chain, has a buyer signed up for his pad in Mermaid Beach’s Millionaires Row, Hedges Ave.

The Sydney dweller and owner of the Tallebudgera Valley’s Gwindanna health retreat will take an “unhealthy” loss on the beachfront three-level house.

He paid $7.3 million for it as the GFC was unfolding, last month listed it for sale at $6.75 million, and has made a sale at $6.35 million.

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CHARTER ON US COURSE

CHARTER Pacific, a Surfers Paradise company which left the ASX in May 2017, has signalled it will be chasing cash and two alternative listings, one in New York.

Charter, which is sitting on a $36 million pile of tax losses, has just won a long fight to gain control of patents relating to smart-card biometrics.

It says it is planning a capital raising, a listing on the National Stock Exchange, and eventually one on US exchange the NASDAQ.

The property’s located in the gorgeous Numinbah Valley.

DAIRY DUO EYE CREAM

BROTHERS hoping to put their family’s long-held Numinbah Valley former dairy farm out to pasture via an auction have yet to achieve a bonny result.

Peter and Barry Yaun, whose family has been on the 173ha Bonnie Doon property for five generations totalling 110 years, saw the farm passed in at $3.5 million and are hoping for an offer with more “cream”.

They stopped dairy farming on the land in 2007 in the wake of industry deregulation.