On the QT gossip: Con Makris, Simone Smith, Danny Andrews

Con Makris ‘chortles’ over Marina Mirage offer, Simone Smith back in the property game and a new Robina project for Danny Andrews. ALL THE GOSSIP

CON Makris, owner of Marina Mirage on the Southport Spit, has chortled over suggestions he’s received an $80 million offer for the waterfront property – he says the offer was, in fact, $85 million and was shunned.

South Australian developer Con Makris has chortled over suggestions he’s received an $80 million offer for Marina Mirage. Picture: Mike Batterham

Con, who says he’s virtually retired, bought the retail centre and adjoining marina for $59.1 million in 2013.

Unconfirmed scuttlebuck on the Spit includes that there might buyers eyeing Chinese billionaire Riyu Li’s Marina Mirage and the Star consortium’s beachfront Sheraton Grand Mirage.

Con Makris at Broadbeach Oracle. Pic by Luke Marsden.

SIMONE Smith, former wife of BreakFree holiday group founder Tony Smith, is back in the property market as both a buyer and a seller.

The beachfront family home of BreakFree accommodation group founder and ex-AFL footballer Tony Smith and wife Simone at Mermaid Beach sold for a record $25 million in 2020. Picture: Supplied

Simone, who sold the family home on the beachfront at Mermaid Beach for $25 million in May 2020, is the bidder who last month paid $7.61 million for a single-level home on a double lot close to the Mermaid beach home.

Tony and Simone Smith. Picture: Supplied

Next month she is to auction a two-floor penthouse in a five-level beachfront Miami building, bought for $5.75 million five months after the $25 million home sale.

DANNY Andrews, whose group is behind top-shelf beachside towers such as Encore and Vue, is keeping up the project flow but this time with an ‘inland’ venture called Cascade.

Developer Danny Andrews with a Nissan Leaf electric car.

It’s going on a 1.17ha site bought from Robina Land for $13.97 million and will consist of two eight-floor buildings and 225 apartments that will start at $660,000.

Danny Andrews and Scott Hutchinson at a sod turn for Dune Main Beach. Photo: Supplied

The prices are in contrast to those in the millions at Kiwi Danny’s flagship project Dune, underway on the beachfront at Main Beach.