On The QT: Sunland Pimpama property soon to gross $150m in land sales

A chunk of land bought for less than $20 million is set to gross almost eight times the original amount in land sales.

A CHUNK of land on the western side of the Pacific Highway at Pimpama that was at one point tagged Drake’s Folly is quickly shaping as Sunland’s Lolly.

The listed developer bought the 105ha property for less than $20 million in 2013 and could be on the verge of grossing $150 million or more from land sales.

It’s believed to have sold, or is committed to sell, 450 or so of the planned 700-odd lots in an estate it called The Heights and quietly has been looking to exit the balance of them to one buyer.

Now it appears a Father Christmas might be on the horizon and poised to make the investment not just a sweet one but a jolly sweet one.

The 150ha property sold for $20 million. Picture: Nigel Tod

Multiple buyers apparently have scanned the uncommitted residential holdings and the word is that a Thakral-Peter Puljich team that’s in the retirement community business is the frontrunner.

The money? A figure close to $30 million is being suggested.

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That’s on top of the healthy feed Sunland already has digested from The Heights and the likelihood that it will find buyers for two commercial holdings it is marketing near the estate’s entrance.

The Benowa-based group gained control of the property by spending nearly $18 million to buy Suncorp’s $22 million first mortgage and $1.5 million to buy second-mortgage securities.

It went on to undertake months of earthworks on the undulating land and redrafted the previous owner’s masterplan.

Soheil Abedian is the leading developer and founder of Sunland Group. Picture: Tertius Pickard

That owner was the LM Managed Performance Fund, run by Peter Drake’s LM group.

At the time of LM’s collapse in 2013, there was debt of around $270 million on the property.

The site had been assembled in 2007-09 by Young Land Corporation, with LM funding, for around $70 million, for an estate named Arrowtown.

LM took full control of the project in 2010, renamed it Maddison, unveiled bold plans for up to 1500 residential titles, and involved TV gardener Jamie Durie, Olympic medallists Natalie Cook and Samantha Riley, and surfer Kelly Slater.

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The Thakral and Puljich families mooted to be in the wings to snare the residential holdings that Sunland is offloading teamed up in 2015.

The Thakrals, via the then- ASX listed Thakral Holdings, are former owners of the Oasis shopping centre and adjoining hotel at Broadbeach and of The Glades golf course at Robina.

The Puljich family, led by patriarch Peter, owns the Living Gems business, which started more than 30 years ago with the conversion of caravan parks into over-50s havens.

Peter Puljich leads the Living Gems business.

Four years ago a Thakral-Puljich joint-venture company, GTH Resorts, was set up to target the baby boomer market with gated resort-style retirement villages under a GemLife label.

GTH already has seven ventures spread across Brisbane, NSW and Victoria and last year was aspiring to make a 352-unit Gold Coast debut at Currumbin Waters but was rebuffed by the city council.

Fertility Specialist Dr Kee Ong may be moving into a Southport office. Picture by Scott Fletcher

SPECIALISTS IN NEW VENTURE

TWO medical specialists will be hoping an $8.2 million “spend” on an office building in longstanding Southport office precinct Short St will be a fertile investment.

Kee Ong, who’s in the IVF field, and Selena Young, who works in radiation oncology, jointly have bought the near-full six-level building at No.7-11, which is netting around $680,000 a year.

Kee works closely with Monash IVF, which just happens to have offices at the eastern end of Short St.

Mike Kelly has cashed in again in Paradise Waters.

NO TROUBLE IN PARADISE

MIKE Kelly, a long-time developer who in 2017 sold a Paradise Waters mansion for $10.2 million, has cashed in again in the suburb.

The newly-built Hamptons-style Kelly property, which fronts a canal in Seafarer Crt, has brought a more modest figure -- $2.7 million.

Mike, one-time dweller in Multi-Millionaires’ Row, Mermaid Beach’s Hedges Ave, at one point had $12.5 million ambitions for his earlier home, in Norseman Crt -- the current owner is seeking $15 million.

The former headquarters of surfwear giant Billabong at Burleigh Heads on the Gold Coast.

BURLEIGH SITE DEAL MOOTED

JOHN Potter and son Zac, both bullish over commercial-industrial property, are believed to have a foot on the last piece of land held by the Billabong group’s owner at Burleigh Heads.

The 4117sqm site is between the headquarters of Billabong and surfwear e-tailer SurfStich and is a one-time Zupps caryard.

The mooted Potter deal is for a figure north of $3.5 million, which will go to Billabong owner Boardriders, seller of ‘Billy’s’ HQ for $38.46 million in May.