Gold Coast development: New rental units planed for Southport’s $500m Queen Street Village shopping centre

A big change has been pitched for a $500m Gold Coast shopping centre which is being tipped to help lessen the city’s ‘mortgage trauma’.

A stress-reducing and ‘affordable’ new chapter is on the way in the unfolding story of the trouble-plagued former Gold Coast Hospital site in Southport.

A corner lot at hospital successor Queen Street Village is set to provide some tall relief for people experiencing mortgage trauma.

The Brisbane Housing Company is coming to town to build, own and manage a tower with rental units.

It wants to deliver what it terms a mix of social and affordable homes for ‘vulnerable Queenslanders’.

Tower approved for Brisbane Housing site at 98 Nerang St

The units also will provide what the company describes as quality long-term homes for people experiencing rental stress.

Not-for-profit charity BHC is no novice in the area of social and affordable housing, be it as a developer, a buyer or a seller.

It’s built more than 2000 units across southeast Queensland and put roofs over more than 7500 households.

Its rental income in the 2021-22 year topped $18 million.

The Southport mortgage-stress move has been made possible by the land’s owner getting into mortgage stress.

Nerang St Holdings, which bought the hospital site, went bust in 2022 and its Brisbane parent, Property Solutions, followed earlier this year.

The site in question.

The land bought by BHC, officially 98 Nerang St, fell into the hands of mortgagee Makro Finance and is on the corner of Little High St.

The largest undeveloped portion of the masterplanned 3.2ha village site was bought from mortgagees for $10.5 million several months ago by fuel-industry billionaires Eddie Hirsch and Ari Silver.

Secured creditor Hutchinsons, a construction group which had been working on the Queen Street Village project, controls the volumetric title above the village’s IGA supermarket.

The title has a 3481 sqm footprint and approval for a 22-floor tower with 114 apartments.

It’s been on the market via the agency which marketed the two distress sites, Colliers International, for months but has failed to sell.

Vacant land on the corner of Little High St and Nerang St, next to the new Queen Street Village shopping centre. Picture Glenn Hampson

BHC has paid $5.62 million for its 2554 sqm holding, bought with an approval in place for a building of 22 floors, with 102 apartments above ground-floor commercial and retail space.

It’s now a question of whether BHC will go with that approval and modify it, or come up with a fresh plan.

The company wants to deliver 160 units, which perhaps could be achieved by changing the floorplans in the approved building.

BHC’s in the process of finalising funding to press on with its plans.

Its move into Southport has been influenced by the location of what is a vacant site.

The site, which has been home to ducks, will soon be home to people. Picture Glenn Hampson

The tower’s community will have the IGA supermarket, theatres, cafes and fast food on the doorstep, along with a medical centre.

That’s not all in medical terms, with a day hospital across the road and a choice of eye specialists nearby.

And, if another step in life is needed, a two-tower retirement village is planned at the southeast side of the Queen Street Village site by healthcare provider Bolton Clarke.

A major plus for residents will be having a light-rail station almost at the front door.

BHC is a 21-year-old public company set up by the Queensland Government, which has two-thirds ownership with the balance held by the Brisbane City Council.

It has developed a swag of buildings, mostly low or medium rise.

The planned Southport project appears to be the first time it has elected to take the high road and build a tower.

DRIVING A LOSS

V8 Supercar driver Paul Weel and his wife Emma, with daughters Mila and Abby. Picture Glenn Hampson

Paul Weel, one-time top-notch V8 supercar driver, and wife Emma, who have been trying to exit their beachfront home at Mermaid Beach, have had some success with an acreage property at Gilston.

It’s not quite the success they might have envisaged, with Emma selling a 40ha spread which was named the Oakleigh Equestrian Centre when it was bought for $7 million in 2020.

A buyer with $5.4 million to spend, in the form of Paradise Waters resident Greg McKinnon, has taken ownership of the property, which includes a 43-year home.

The Weels in August put their oceanfront home, which cost them $15.85 million early last year, on the market and failed to sell it at auction earlier this month.

OCEAN RESORT

Bob Ell

A family which has been ensconced in the beachfront Ocean Resort building at Main Beach for 25 years is selling up and, in doing so, giving property multi-billionaire Bob Ell a new chance to lift his holding.

Bob owns three of the five-floor building’s six apartments and last month missed out on a chance to add a fourth when Computershare co-founder Chris Morris pipped him by paying $9.1 million for the penthouse.

The new listing is an estate one at the behest of the seven siblings of a couple who bought the apartment from the building’s Japanese developer for $598,000 in 1998.

WATERFRONT SALE

Liyun Cao, director of the Chinese company that’s out to sell the blue-chip Star of the Sea site in Southport, is making a fresh effort to unload a waterfront home he’s owned for a decade.

The house is in elite Southport address Wildash St, in the TSS precinct, and one of the two titles in the 1741 sqm holding it occupies has a frontage to Radford St.

The home has seven bedrooms and 45-year-old Liyun, who first marketed it at $3 million-plus in 2018, has upped the ante this time to $4.95 million.