Gold Coast property: Future of 21 Orchid Ave to be decided with property on the market

The end could be nigh for a messy property saga that started in the heart of Surfers Paradise’s party precinct more than nine years ago. INSIDE STORY

The end could be nigh for a messy saga that started in the heart of Surfers Paradise nine years ago.

The ‘end’ depends on investors showing an appetite for a property that could allow them to chew over at least three options

Those options involve catering for either nightclubbers, backpackers, or hotel guests.

The property is a 46-year-old two-floor building for which the Chinese owners are hunting offers.

It’s at 21 Orchid Ave, a popular nightclub street – the building over time has been home to the Lush and Alive clubs.

The building is approved for a backpacker hostel, the site comes with the right to go high with a BDA-designed 270-suite hotel, and reinstating a nightclub is seen as an option.

Mooted Grand Gold Coast Hotel

There are other options, of course, for any buyer who doesn’t want to go in any of those directions.

The move to sell the property, if successful, will bring to a close an episode that started in December 2015 and didn’t have the grand ending that was planned.

It initially involved Chinese investors, a Newcastle lawyer, funding from a managed investment scheme and, later, a mortgagee.

The building, via company Grand Orchid 21, was bought from investor Elvio Pugliese in late 2015 in a transaction that involved interstate apartments and $8.8 million in cash.

Approval quickly was gained for a 25-floor hotel called the Grand Gold Coast, which would offer grand ocean views from a rooftop pool-bar.

Then the funding needed to make the hotel happen dried up when China effectively put a brake on money outflows by tightening business migration laws

Mooted 21 Orchid backpacker hostel

Owner Grand Orchid put the site on the market in 2017 and some time later it carried a $15.95 million tag.

An offer of $12 million purportedly was made but no sale materialised.

Two auction campaigns and a tender process failed to produce a deal.

At one point a mortgagee stepped in, took possession of the property, and an attempt was made to sell it at $8.8 million.

The Chinese investors who had money in Grand Orchid’s hotel venture then decided their best protection was to buy the Orchid Ave holding themselves.

Company Victory Development Investment, with a raft of Chinese owners, was set up and the ‘Orchid’ property transferred to it in a $5.5 million sale deal agreed to in 2020 but which did not settle until last year.

Victory, hoping for a win, has called in a fellow to market it who previously has had experience with the building, Colliers’ top man on the Gold Coast, Steven King.

Mooted Grand Gold Coast Hotel

Among his ‘servings’ to would-be buyers undoubtedly will be what the approval for the Grand hotel allows.

The tower, for which the approval lapses next year, would be 25 floors and carry a 4.5-star rating.

The approved backpacker hostel would accommodate 168 people, have a bar, and have hotel space in the basement.

In January there was a move to take another tack, with an application being lodged for a nightclub to accommodate 600 people.

By March that idea was shelved and a decision to sell the property has followed.

The Orchid Ave dabble was not the first one by Chinese investors with links to the Grand Orchid company.

A $7.65 million buy was made in 2015 for a corner site in Southport’s Scarborough St and plans unveiled s for a 49-level hotel called Grand Central.

The site was sold by receivers for $6.6 million in 2021 to veteran retirement village operator Walter Elliott.

SELLING UP

Matthew and Joanna Malec, who between them spent more than $20 million buying properties at elite address that is the Sovereign Islands at Paradise Point, have almost emptied their cupboard.

The supermarket operators, who started buying more than five years ago, gradually have sold 11 of their 12 titles, making money on all but one of them.

Their latest sale has involved a two-level home in King Charles Drive, one with four bedrooms, crystal chandeliers, and a 21-metre water frontage.

That’s where the Malecs have ‘crystallised’ a loss – the property cost them $3.688 million five years ago and has sold for $3.45 million.

Their exit leaves billionaire Clive Palmer, who bought one Malec property, as far and away the biggest owner on Sovereign.

BYE TO SURFERS

Mark Howard

A Singaporean group which jumped into a Surfers Paradise high-rise site seven years ago is heading for the door and appears intent on at least getting its money back.

SHS Holdings paid $5.5 million for the 1055 sqm site in Ferny Ave, buying it from fellow Singaporean group Ho Bee, and has put it on the market seeking at least $6 million.

Twelve years ago Ho Bee bought the site for $1.98 million from receivers to a company linked to developer Mark Howard and put a display suite on it when it was marketing the nearby Rhapsody tower.

The site was approved in 2015 for a 25-floor tower with 98 apartments, a project that never was started.

CHEERS TO THAT

Evelyn Butters and Craig McVean.

Craig McVean, who for many years wore a publican’s hat and was a was a one-time partner in the Jacobs Well Bayside Tavern, has scored an art-deco type win in Mackay.

Craig, these days selling pubs for RWC, has sold Maguires CBD hotel in a deal that involved two transactions – the non-operating pub and its 14 poker machine rights.

The sale, achieved with RWC colleague Scott Wells, saw the pub sell for $1 million and the pokie licences for $180,000.

The two-storey pub, which was opened in 1832, has 23 rooms for guests, a four-bedroom manager’s house, and a beer garden.