Reside Communities at Hope Island exploring other opportunities on Gold Coast

A group that bought out the site of a former Gold Coast theme park to develop the city’s biggest retirement village has indicated it is hungrier for an even bigger presence in the city.

RESIDE Communities, which is planning potentially the Gold Coast’s biggest retirement village, has indicated it is hungry for an even bigger presence in the city.

The group, set up in 2017, bought the former Village Square markets site in the burgeoning suburb that is Hope Island in June for $17.025 million.

It is hoping, with the good grace of the city council, to build 348 “vertical” apartments for retirees on the 3.4ha site.

If Reside does get the green light, the project is likely to be a five-year one.

MULTI-TOWER RETIREMENT COMMUNITY PLANNED FOR HOPE ISLAND

Artist impressions of a proposed retirement community with several towers planned for Sickle Ave, Hope Island. Picture: Supplied

The group‘s Gold Coast ambitions don’t end on Hope Island — it has signalled that other “opportunities” are being explored.

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Reside has a healthy war-chest with which to realise those ambitions.

The group was set up by Brisbane-based GreenFort Capital and $11 billion Hong Kong property fund Gaw Capital Partners with the express aim of building a “boutique” $600 million, 1500-title retirement living portfolio.

It owns two small operating villages in Brisbane but the Village Square project, by virtue of its size, definitely won’t be boutique.

DEMOLITION BEGINS AT FORMER HOPE ISLAND THEME PARK

Artist impressions of a proposed retirement community with several towers planned for Sickle Ave, Hope Island. Picture: Supplied

The Reside Hope Island apartments will be spread across five buildings of up to seven levels and will be adjacent to the new Woolworths-anchored Marketplace shopping centre.

The yet-to-be-named waterfront project, with a hectare of green space at its heart, is intended to cater for what Reside views as a rapidly-growing number of over-70s living on Hope Island.

The group is hoping to make the golden years of those people enjoyable by offering a community with its own cinema, art studio, indoor pool, yoga and pilates studio, gymnasium, restaurant, beauty salon, and medical and allied health consulting rooms.

Of course, Reside is far from a pacesetter on Hope Island in terms of offering older Gold Coasters living options.

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Artist impressions of a proposed retirement community with several towers planned for Sickle Ave, Hope Island. Picture: Supplied

The Halcyon group set foot on the island with a land buy in 2003 and went on to develop the sellout Halcyon Waters, a masterplanned over-50s community with 227 homes.

It followed up with Vision by Halcyon, where high-spec homes can cost up to $1.325 million.

The Victorian-based Arcare group has built two aged-care facilities on the island.

In the wind is an Aveo retirement community on a $15 million site within the Sanctuary Cove resort.

Reside partner, Gaw Capital, was a contender to buy the listed Aveo group, now under offer by Canada’s Brookfield group.

Artist impressions of a proposed retirement community with several towers planned for Sickle Ave, Hope Island. Picture: Supplied

The fellow running Reside, Glen Browne, is a former Aveo and RetireAustralia executive.

Potential Reside residents won’t know what size the “tickets” on the Village Square apartments will be for some time — the group first has to get development approval and then construction costings.

It is planning retail outlets on the Pendraat Pde frontage.

Meanwhile, there surely were a couple of interested observers when Reside popped up out of the blue and snared the Village Square site.

One was German retailer Kaufland, which was believed to be the frontrunner, albeit at a snail’s pace, to buy Village Square.

The other would have been Marketplace developer Lennon Lin, who stands to gain a swag of new customers as the Reside project evolves.