Gold Coast real estate: What’s happening at Tweed’s old drive-in movie site

A new development is rising from the ‘unusable’ dirt at what used to be the Tweed Heads drive-in movie theatre. DETAILS >>>

A VAST industrial hub is rising from the “unusable” dirt at what used to be the Tweed Heads drive-in movie theatre.

Queensland Airports Limited (QAL), which also owns and operates nearby Gold Coast Airport, has undertaken extensive remediation works to clear the way for commercial tenants on the 5.15ha site it purchased for $11.5m in 2016.

The widespread preparatory work – including the removal of about 23,300 cubic metres of soil and 300 metres of pipe from the Wollemi Place site – will house leading Australian food distributor PFD Food Services on about half of the available area from early 2022.

The project has created about 250 construction jobs and a further 125 ongoing roles will be delivered when the facility opens.

Two additional land parcels – comprising about 9400sq m and 10,090sq m – are now being brought to the leasing market, via an expressions-of-interest campaign.

James Crawford and Darrell Irwin have negotiated the sale of former drive-in site at 1 Wollemi Place, Tweed Heads West, near the Gold Coast Airport. The Airport have also purchased the land. Picture: Adam Head

QAL CEO Chris Mills said the site had been returned to a prime state following the remediation work – opening up a valuable industrial site on the Queensland-NSW border for future use.

“Significant cost and time were involved in this thorough exercise,” he said. “It was a case of no stone literally being unturned in this work.

“Without this work being undertaken, the site would have been virtually unusable.”

A specialist environmental consultant and independent auditor were engaged by the airport to oversee and validate the completion of the remediation works.

The site was purchased in 2016 and the contamination arose from previous activities on the land.

Each of the two lots being marketed for lease can be developed to provide about 5000sq m under roof, or potentially combined to provide a single facility of 10,000sq m.

A consent permit is in place for a variety of uses including bulky goods, light industry, office and warehouse, and distribution.

The PFD facility, which is due to open in 2022, will include freezer, cold and ambient storage facilities, with about 5500sq m under roof. A second stage is also in the pipeline.

CBRE and Colliers have been engaged to market lots three and four and will be starting an expressions-of-interest campaign in coming weeks.