Tenders yet to be released for construction of Surfers Paradise Spirit tower as sales continue
AS progress remains stalled at the Jewel project, developers of the $1.3 billion Spirit super tower at Surfers Paradise are yet to put its next stage of construction to tender.
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AS progress remains stalled at the Jewel project, developers of the $1.3 billion Spirit super tower at Surfers Paradise are yet to put its next stage of construction to tender.
Work on the complicated basement for the 89-storey project, on the site of the old Iluka building in central Surfers, was finished in June after installation of a diaphragm wall to 38m to prevent flooding.
Sales and marketing for the 479 apartments, including a $41 million penthouse, have been under way since July.
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The scale of the project is likely to limit the number of builders vying to build it to tier one companies like Probuild, which recently completed The Darling at The Star Gold Coast, Multiplex, which is working on Jewel, and Hutchinsons, which is tied up with the Ruby development and has other major projects in the pipeline.
Other outfits with the capability for the job include CPB Contractors, formerly Leighton, and Lendlease, which is developing Barangaroo South in Sydney.
Commonwealth Games Village builder Grocon has packed up its Queensland operations and is unlicensed in the state so is out of the picture.
Representatives from Hutchinsons and Probuild were unavailable to talk about the project yesterday.
PENTHOUSE COULD SMASH AUSSIE SALES RECORD
One construction boss, who did not wish to be named, said companies looking at the job would be examining it closely.
“Any builder, particularly a tier one company, would be looking at the risk profile,” he said.
“Even the tender costs would be well into the hundreds of thousands so they would certainly be doing their due diligence in terms of who’s paying and what their reputation is like.”
Julian Sutherland of Ray White Projects said the group planned to relaunch its marketing of the project in coming weeks.
The project’s future appeared uncertain last month with some consultants not paid for their work — a situation which has since been rectified.
HICKEY MANAGEMENT NO LONGER PROJECT MANAGERS FOR SPIRIT
The Chinese developers of the Spirit quietly took over an obscure ASX-listed mining fund with interests in remote regions of Papua New Guinea earlier this year.
Shares in Frontier Resources were placed in a trading halt after the Gold Coast Bulletin reported entities connected with Forise had taken a $6 million, 67 per cent stake as the ASX issued the company with a query over its operations.
Gold Coast lawyer Tony Hickey is chairman of Frontier Resources, along with Yun Wei “Fenix” Dong, CEO of Forise Investment Australia, the company behind the Spirit development.
Chinese-backed projects around the world have been impacted by a clampdown on foreign investment by the Chinese Government.
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