Q1 Surfers Paradise: 20 years since Gold Coast tower’s record-breaking spire was installed

Surfers Paradise’s Q1 entered the history books 20 years ago this week when one of its most famous features was installed. INSIDE THE HISTORIC DAY

The Q1 is the Gold Coast’s best-known high-rise.

The Surfers Paradise supertower, which rises to 79-levels, remains Australia’s tallest residential tower today, nearly 20 years on from its completion.

While there are several mega projects which rise beyond 100-levels, Q1 still pips them to the record by virtue of its giant 93m spire which brought the tower to a height of 322.5m, far above its skydeck.

That spire, installed 20 years ago this week, remains a focal point for the Gold Coast, and a frequent target of lightning strikes.

The $500m building, which would go on to be named Queensland One (Q1), was announced in 2001 as being 20m taller than Paris’ Eiffel Tower and immediately became a topic of conversation.

The Q1’s construction lasted for years. Picture: Geoff McLachlan

A building of that size had never been attempted before on the Gold Coast or in a location so close to a beach, so developer Sunland brought in a crack team of engineers which used “an emerging technique called post-tensioning” to shore it up with high-tension cables and reinforce concrete.

It went to the market in early 2002 and more than 400 of its 527 units were sold in just four days, notching up more than $17 million.

It sold out within six months and construction began in June 2002 when Premier Peter Beattie turned the first sod.

However there were constant fears the project would not be completed or would be forced to be cut in half and rise to just 42 levels.

By mid-2004 the tower’s height surpassed Peninsula and became the Gold Coast’s tallest building.

July 2005: The Gold Coast’s Q1 supertower officially became the world’s tallest residential building after the spire was installed. Picture: Glenn Hampson

In July 2005, the spire was installed to the delight of Sunland’s Sahba Abedian.

Mr Abedian, who led Sunland with his father Soheil, told the Bulletin in 2005 that the project’s critics had been silenced as the spire’s completion saw it officially gain the title of the world’s tallest residential tower.

“There were so many (rumours) – anything you could imagine,’’ he said at the time

“With every major development, people are always sceptical about accepting it.

“But that is what has made segments of Australian society so dominating – whether it be manufacturing, food, tourism, art and literature. In sport we receive more gold medals per capita than any other country.

“You have to convince the people of Australia that you can do it, and that’s what makes you strive to make the (most of) opportunities.

Soheil Abedian and Sahba Abedian with the Q1 building behind them in 2005

“But from a construction point of view, it was easy. We knew we had the engineering capabilities to do it.’’

Topping the spire was the blinking safety beacon, a light which cost more than $15,000.

The bulb is 40 cm long and 15cm in diameter.

Mr Abedian said he was glad to have secured the title but tipped that a larger building would come along and unthrone it eventually.

“We’re not oblivious to the fact that someone will come along and make something much bigger, we understand that.,” he said.

“But at the end of the day, we’ve given the Gold Coast something it can remember.’’

Now, two decades on from the spire’s installation, the Gold Coast is yet to get another tower to eclipse Q1.

Several proposals have been mooted in the last decade for supertowers of more than 100-storeys to rise in Surfers Paradise but all have failed to progress or been abandoned and their sites sold on by developers.

Two developers – Azzura Group’s Robert Badalotti and Melbourne-based One Park Lane – have active plans to build supertowers beyond 100-storeys in Southport, with Mr Badalotti’s project already approved by the Gold Coast City Council.