Gold Coast development: Leading developers and real estate figures demand council fix Surfers Paradise in 1999

FLASHBACK: The top five Surfers Paradise businessmen angrily demanded an immediate injection of money to rejuvenate the tourism jewel, starting with its roads.

THE top five Surfers Paradise businessmen angrily demanded an immediate injection of money to rejuvenate the tourism jewel.

That was the Gold Coast Bulletin’s front page news this week 20 years ago, kicking off a dispute which lasted half a decade.

Surfers Paradise Photo: David Clark

The five business bosses putting the Gold Coast City Council on notice were:

* Sunland boss Soheil Abedian

* Real estate kingpin Max Christmas.

* Developer Jim Raptis

* Real estate agent Gordon Douglas

* Retail boss Robin Wright.

They met in Surfers Paradise and en masse threatened to resign from the council’s Heart of the City taskforce unless city hall put $2 million into the suburb.

Soheil Abedian.

They also moved a motion to take a $21 million roadworks project into their own hands, calling for private contractors to fast-track the work.

“Surfers Paradise is rapidly dying,” said Mr Douglas, who headed real estate agency PRD Realty.

“Every time we sell a property it halves in value. Every time we do a rent review it goes down.”

He predicted Surfers Paradise land values would fall by up to 35 per cent later that year.

Max Christmas.

Mr Douglas highlighted the Raptis Group’s $30 million purchase of the old Chevron Hotel site from Singapore billionaire Ong Beng Seng who had paid $42 million for it give years earlier as a sign of the decline.

Mr Raptis who planned a $400 million redevelopment, called on council to spend ‘serious money’ in Surfers Paradise.

“We are not going to rush in and spend big money unless the city comes to the party,” he said.

“We are sick and tired of waiting and waiting and waiting.”

He backed then-Surfers Paradise councillor Lex Bell who he said had been ‘in there battling’ for money but had not been backed by council.

Jim Raptis.

Mr Abedian told the Bulletin in 1999 that people retiring to the Gold Coast were initially drawn by the attractions of Surfers Paradise.

“They only reason they came here is because they first visited the heart of the city,” he said.

Mr Raptis’ project, later known as Chevron Renaissance would go ahead and was built by 2001.

But the stand-off over the upgrade of Surfers Paradise’s roads continued through until the 2004 council elections when some of the same powerful businessmen took aim at then-mayor Gary Baildon and Mr Christmas, who by then was the Glitter Strip’s councillor.

At a forum of more than 60 business leaders held by the Surfers Paradise Chamber of Commerce, Mr Abedian slammed city hall.

“Our council can’t make a decision,” he said.

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Then-Mayor Gary Baildon and Premier Peter Beattie

“We have 14 independent councillors. They can hide behind anything and everything, they can shit on officers.

“Council doesn’t have a common vision for this time, they come before every election with new ideas.

“We can talk until tomorrow and come up with ideas but nobody can put it together unless 14 councillors say: ‘This is the heart of the our city, that is what we want to do’.

“Mayor, we love you but you have to bring the other councillors in line to see your visions.

“Please have one vision and we as a soldier will follow you.”

Cr Baildon lost the election to Ron Clarke and the upgrade of Surfers Paradise’s roads was finally completed several years later.