Aura Surfers Paradise: Tower planned by new buyers of beachfront site next to Northcliffe Surf Life Saving Club

A site next to one of the Gold Coast’s most popular surf life saving clubs has sold for $18m, with its new buyers revealing what they are planning for the land. FIND OUT MORE

The Canadians are here – and in record-breaking fashion.

A Vancouver-based development group with a fat wallet has bought a Surfers Paradise site for $18 million and, in the process, smashed the record rate for Gold Coast beachfront land.

The deal involves a 600 sqm tower site at 59 Garfield Tce, on the northern side of the Northcliffe surf club, and the price represents $30,000 a square metre.

That figure overtakes a record set a week ago when an oceanfront residential site at Mermaid Beach fetched $28,395 a square metre, topping a $23,703 figure set last year on the same oceanfront strip.

“The $30,000 has set a new benchmark on the beachfront,” Roland Evans, principal of Canford Estate Agents, yesterday said.

“It will be positive news for owners of beachfront buildings being targeted by developers, such as The President in nearby Northcliffe Tce.

Artist impression of the AURA tower planned for Surfers Paradise. The site's new owner will revisit the design. Picture: Supplied

“This deal also highlights that the Gold Coast is featuring more and more in the international spotlight.”

The seller of the Garfield Tec site is a company linked to David Fang, a director of the listed ASF group, which bought it for $4.86 million eight years ago.

It carries approval for a 31-floor tower with 27 full-floor apartments and to be called AURA on the Beach.

The buyer is Fine Peace Development (Australia), a company set up late last year and which has Chinese directors.

Mr Evans said the Canadian group planned to develop a high-rise but first would revisit the approval.

“This buy is an Australian debut but they already have other properties under contract, but not on the Gold Coast.”

Valuer Luke Nichols, a director of Herron Todd White, said the $30,000 a square metre rate was almost 30 per cent higher than the rate paid for an adjoining beachfront amalgamation at 61 Garfield Tce last year.

Canford Group's Roland Evans. Photo: Supplied

“Furthermore, despite the concerns around high construction costs and the limited number of commercial builders, a record site price is an indication that developers remain confident in undertaking new apartment projects in premium coastal positions.

“This sale clearly is an example of the very limited opportunity to acquire direct beachfront sites and the sustained demand for new high-quality apartments.”

Another major Canadian group, investor Brookfield, secured the Oasis shopping centre at Broadbeach as part of a 2012 takeover of listed group Thakral.

It on-sold the centre, along with a Budds Beach tower site and development land at Robina.

ASF’s Mr Fang, the Garfield Tce seller, last year was a beneficiary of apartments king Harry Triguboff paying $67.5 million for a beachfront site between The Esplanade and highway in Surfers Paradise.

The deal involved the ageing The Shore tower and an adjoining holding, one which cost Mr Fang $15 million and which he sold to Mr Triguboff for $26 million.