David Devine: Developer’s surprise plans for North Burleigh tower sites

A veteran developer isn’t slowing down, with plans to transform North Burleigh’s beachfront stretch as he pushing ahead with several other tower projects in key sites. FIND OUT WHY

DAVID Devine, a veteran developer who won’t slow down, has a new beach ball in the air beside the ocean at Burleigh Heads.

That’s emerged after the former house-builder, who last month turned 76, upped the ante at the northern end of oceanfront street The Esplanade.

He scrubbed plans for a sell-out luxury tower called Alba, snaffled a distress site next door, and announced he was going bigger and better.

Meanwhile, it’s emerged that since 2020, there’s quietly been a Devine foot on another potential tower site along the street.

David Devine

The site is home to low-rise Tobermory, named after the capital of the Isle of Mull in the Scottish inner Hebrides.

David’s been joined as an owner in the 57-year-old building by a company headed by his Alba marketing agent, Jamie-Lee Edwards.

All the owners are backing a Devine plan to get a green light for an 18-level Koichi Takada-designed tower with 28 apartments, with a planning approval decision not due until April.

The tower, on a 1012sq m site, would look down on its neighbours – the 11-storey Solnamara building and the twin Mediterranean towers.

Just how soon David, one-time owner of a beachfront McDonald’s building in Surfers Paradise, would embark on a new tower is up in the air – he has his hands rather full.

The biggie on his list is Royale, a 38-floor tower on a $43.5 million site in Northcliffe Tce, Surfers.

Construction’s underway on the 60 per cent sold project, which gained $200 million in funding in September.

216 The Esplanade tower would sit between the Solnamara building and the Mediterranean

David unveiled his Alba tower plans in 2019 after doing a deal on a 1012sq m holiday-unit site with the Australian Post-Tel Institute of Queensland.

The institute, which has had a 30-year presence in north Palm Beach, still shows on property records as the site owner.

The 22-floor Alba’s 55 apartments were a sellout.

The site, which still shows in the institute’s name, was doubled in size when a Devine entity bought a distress property next door.

That property, home to the North Burleigh Place low-rise, had been assembled by failed Victorian group Caydon at a cost of $17.8 million.

Just what the Devine camp is paying has not been revealed but the buy appears to be the result of a deal with a mortgagee or receiver.

David, with more land, dropped his Alba plans and is chasing a green light for a more bulky 24-floor building, tagged Burly, with 100 apartments.

The plan is to move the buyers in Alba into Burly.

The Devine move into Tobermory was made in April 2020, many months before David unwrapped his plans for Alba at the northern end of The Esplanade.

A $1.25 million apartment was bought on an 18-month settlement, one that had sold for nearly half that six years earlier.

Roll through to January this year and JLE Burleigh Heads, directed by Jamie-Lee, paid $1.75 million for a Tobermory unit.

The 33-year-old agent has enjoyed stunning success, and obviously bonny sales commissions, at the top end of the apartment market at Burleigh and Palm Beach.

Prior to her Alba role, she marketed the Forme group’s top-shelf Norfolk and Luna boutique tower’s overlooking the ocean in Burleigh’s Goodwin Tce.

They are buildings in which the lowest price paid was $2.8 million and the peak was $9 million.

Jamie-Lee in January bought the remaining Luna apartment from Forme for $3.2 million.

Maybe down the track she’ll have a Burly presence, even though she’s not the marketing agent – that job’s with Total Property Group.