Japanese-style capsule hotel project scrapped for one of the Gold Coast’s oldest buildings, residential tower planned instead

Plans to replace one of the Gold Coast’s oldest buildings with Queensland’s first Japanese-style capsule hotel have been scrapped. Instead, a developer now has another project in mind. SEE THE PLANS >>>

PLANS to demolish one of the Gold Coast’s oldest buildings and replace it with Queensland’s first Japanese-style capsule hotel have been scrapped.

Instead, a developer is now planning to raze Southport’s old Queen Street convenience store and build a residential tower.

QJ Development Group Pty Ltd, which is linked to China-born investor Jian Lin and was behind the 2019 capsule hotel proposal, has filed plans with the council to build a seven-level low-rise with 11 luxury units.

The loss of the historic building, which is more than 120 years old and was once the area’s Cobb and Co station, has dismayed long-time locals.

“My mum used to send me up there to buy her tobacco as a kid while I used to walk past it every day on the way to and from school and I remember going in there for sixpence bags of lollies,” Southport MP Rob Molhoek said.

“It’s very sad (that the building will be demolished) but it is probably beyond saving at this point.”

The Queen St shop closed in February 2018 and in recent years has been used as a boarding house.

It was planned to turn it into student accommodation but these fell through.

In September 2019, QJ Development Group filed plans with the council for its capsule hotel, which was to feature 124 rooms spread across its four levels.

It was scrapped as a result of the international tourism industry’s collapse in the wake of Covid-19.

It is the latest proposed redevelopment of a historic Gold Coast building in the past year.

The council in May approved the redevelopment of the Old Burleigh Theatre Arcade to build a luxury unit tower.

The former site of Coolangatta’s historic Danceland was bought earlier this year, with developers planning to build a new tower which will retain the building’s 1930s-era dance floor.

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