Harry Triguboff: Meriton Group revamps $1.8bn plans for Cypress Surfers Paradise development
High-rise emperor Harry Triguboff, who has a seemingly insatiable appetite for Gold Coast projects, is sniffing around yet another Surfers Paradise tower site. FIND OUT WHERE
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High-rise emperor Harry Triguboff, who has a seemingly insatiable appetite for Gold Coast projects, is sniffing around yet another Surfers Paradise tower site.
The interest comes as the 90-year-old developer, in an age-matching ambition, is planning to build a 90-level building on another site in the tourist hub.
Its apartments will look down on the city’s highest apartments – in Harry’s 18-month-old Ocean tower, which runs up to 76 levels on the Surfers oceanfront.
A source close to the latest potential Triguboff buy says the land is not on the beachfront but previously has had a tower approved for it.
If a deal was to go ahead, it probably would be the cheapest buy the $23 billion developer would have made in Surfers.
He’s spent $235 million on Surfers land since 2016, with $177 million of that outlaid since mid-2021.
His smallest buy has been the $34.35 million spent on acquiring three-quarters of what is know as the Vomitron site on the western side of Surfers Paradise Blvd.
That’s where the 90-level building comes in.
Harry, after buying the holding, won approval for three towers but he’s had second thoughts.
One tower has been dropped and the taller of the remaining two, subject to planning approval, will go to 304 metres.
It well could qualify to be called a super super-tower, dwarfing his 261-metre Ocean, Sunland’s 245-metre Q1, and the Juniper group’s 243-metre Soul.
The second tower on the Vomitron holding will be 263.5 metres, or a mere 77 floors.
Harry won’t be 90 when the lanky 90-level giant pokes its head above ground level – he turns 91 on March 3.
Meanwhile, a new Surfers buy would further endorse High-Rise Harry’s already bullish view on the future of Surfers Paradise.
He has work well underway on twin towers in a project called Iconica at the northern end of The Esplanade, buildings that will be 76 and 50 levels.
Groundwork has started on the former Vomitron site, where Harry and wife Rhonda used to complete against each other at a putt-putt attraction.
Plans for what could be another large venture on the oceanfront have not been revealed.
Harry’s Meriton group a few months back signed up for what is known as The Shore site, which fronts The Esplanade, Ocean Ave and Surfers Paradise Blvd.
A large part of that site, which cost $67.5 million, is occupied by a 53-year-old tower and there’s no sign of it being knocked down in a hurry.
The decision to trim one tower from the Vomitron masterplan doesn’t reflect a great shrinkage in the number of apartments – the figure will fall by 37 to 1310.
The planned 90-level tower will be home to 690 titles.
Harry, in another change to his original plans, is dropping short-term letting out of the equation.
That doesn’t mean he won’t have a Meriton Suites hotel in one of the towers.
The owner of Australia’s largest chain of hotel properties is a very fluid operator – he has been known to turn apartments into hotel suites when sales are slow, as he did with the twin Meriton towers at Broadbeach many years ago.
The property veteran is not the only Triguboff-related developer busy in Surfers.
Ilya Melnikoff, a one-time Hollywood actor who is a grand nephew of Harry, is undertaking a posh 35-floor tower, Escape, on the beachfront in Garfield Tce.
MOVING PIECES
David Devine, a property veteran who once ran a listed development company, has shuffled his stake in Surfers Paradise beachfront amalgamation target the President building.
He’s moved his four apartments, which cost him $3.12 million, into a new entity, half owned by Parity Property’s Jamie Garden, at $3.364 million.
David owns the other half of the company.
The President is a 13-floor building that’s more than 50 years old and sits on a 1533 sqm site on Northcliffe Tce, south of where David is undertaking the up-market Royale tower on a $45 million site.
An unnamed Victorian group, in tandem with a funds manager, also has bought into the building.
TARGET FOR TOWER
Mick Ellison, best known as twice being the host at Main Beach bar and grill Mano’s, seems a certain target in a Sydney developer’s move to put together a tower site in the suburb.
Five years ago Mick and wife Lynette, former residents in the Malibu tower, bought a three-level Mountbatten Ave villa from Harvey Norman CEO Katie Page for $1.332 million.
The other villa on the site has been bought, for $2.3 million, by developer Steve McMillan who has spent close to $13 million trying to assemble a site for a proposed 35-floor building.
Mick first opened a Mano’s in 1996 and, after a 10-year break, came out of restaurant hibernation.
BEACHFRONT SALE
Clark Kirby, who’s riding along as CEO at Village Roadshow, and wife Sara have halved their holding on the beachfront at Mermaid Beach and pocketed $8.65 million.
The 405 sqm Hedges Ave site was bought for $5.15 in 2019 million as part of a $10.3 million deal which included the three-level house next door, which has been retained by the Kirbys.
Both properties were bought from drilling company founder Peter Mitchell and wife Dee.
The new owners of the Kirbys’ sold lot are fund manager Ashley Burtenshaw and wife Jane, of Clayfield, Brisbane.
90-storeys: Triguboff’s massive new Surfers Paradise project
Prolific developer Harry Triguboff has abandoned plans for a $1.8bn triple high-rise project in the heart of Surfers Paradise to instead build two giant supertowers.
The Gold Coast City Council last year gave the green light to the project, which was to deliver 1029 apartments and 335 short-term accommodation units across buildings of 57, 76 and 83-storeys respectively.
However, Mr Triguboff’s Meriton Group has written to the council asking to scrap one of the towers and plans for short-term accommodation to focus solely on residential units in twin towers. One of the twin towers will top 90 storeys, making it the city’s tallest.
The other tower will reach 77 storeys.
Meriton argues the changes will allow for greater “efficiency” on the Cypress Ave site.
“The proposed changes are primarily driven by the deletion of one of the three approved towers, removing the tower that is presently approved in the northeastern corner of the site, with the podium at levels eight and nine transformed by the proposed changes to create an enhanced communal open space feature for the enjoyment of residents and benefiting from a more open and north-east oriented aspect,” the company argues in its letter.
“The towers remain in a position to anchor each of the northwestern and southeastern site corners, with tower one situated to address the intersection of Palm Ave and Ferny Ave and Tower 2 situated to address the intersection of Cypress Ave and Surfers Paradise Boulevard.
“The position of the towers maintains the principle of maximising separation between towers and with the removal of the northeastern tower, the proposals provide for improved opening up of view corridors through the site compared with the (existing three-tower design).”
According to the revised plans filed with the council, the Cypress project will actually deliver 281 more residential units, with the 90-storey supertower to have 690 apartments while the 77-level building will have 620.
It will also have an increased number of retail tenancies and a childcare centre which will be able to accommodate 66 children and 13 staff.
The twin towers will have 1355 carparking spaces.
The 7273sq m site, once home to the Vomitron ride, previously hosted a carpark and minigolf course and is already being cleared to make way for the development.
The development will be Mr Triguboff’s 21st on the Gold Coast and will rise simultaneously with his neighbouring twin Iconica towers which are being built on The Esplanade
The prominent Iconica location, long held and undeveloped by Singapore-based builder Banyan Tree, was previously home to the Bahia and Beach Lodge towers, which have since been demolished.
The project, approved in September, is believed to be worth almost $1 billion, will feature two towers of 78 and 53-storeys respectively and will deliver a further 627 dwellings, possibly accommodating more than 1200 people.
Mr Triguboff said in late 2023 he was still searching for more Gold Coast sites to develop despite having his hands full with the five Surfers Paradise towers.
“That is what keeps me so excited and why I am hurrying to build more, because I find it very pleasant to work with the Gold Coast City Council because they are keen to get the area moving – it’s different from Sydney where they find reasons not to get it moving.
“As a developer if I want to start building such huge projects I cannot do them in Sydney, the councils are too difficult so I come to Surfers instead.”
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