Gold Coast Highway site near Florida Gardens earmarked for ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’ towers

A FORMER Adelaide company which cut its Gold Coast teeth at Emerald Lakes is taking to the city’s high road with plans for twin apartment towers in Surfers Paradise.

An artist’s impression of the twin towers..

A FORMER Adelaide company which cut its Gold Coast teeth with hundreds of villas at Carrara’s Emerald Lakes is taking to the city’s high road with plans for twin apartment towers in Surfers Paradise.

One of the twins will appear masculine and the other feminine.

The proposed 46 and 41-level towers to be built near the Florida Gardens light-rail station.

The 46- and 41-level towers, to be built by Urban Construct on a highway site that includes the Surfers Paradise Motor Inn, will be 50m from the Florida Gardens light rail station.

Todd Brown, Urban Construct managing director, yesterday said the company had bought the 3022sq m site to take advantage of growth along the rail corridor.

The towers will house 391 apartments and there will be street-level shops and a cafe.

Architects Conrad Gargett said the buildings were intended to be simple, elegant and to complement each other.

The development will include distinctive sculpture, a podium art facade, and colour and lighting features on the western tower’s “sunscreen”.

One tower will have a landscaped green wall similar to the lauded Central Park building in Sydney.

Conrad Gargett design director John Flynn yesterday said tower one would be a masculine form of folded facades with sharp angled corners and clad with reflective silver glass.

“This tower transitions into a podium and the podium appears to support tower two,” Mr Flynn said.

“Tower two is the taller one and is a more feminine form with a concaved facade, curved corners, and clad with reflective gold glass.”

Urban Construct, which has embarked on a number of Brisbane ventures, is no stranger to highrise development.

Its projects in South Australia include the $600 million Holdfast Shores redevelopment of the cosmopolitan Glenelg foreshore and the $1 billion mixed-use The Precinct in Adelaide’s CBD.

In 2010 the company headed north and entered a joint venture with Emerald Lakes developer Nifsan to complete the $1 billion estate. That foray will end in the next 12 months, with nearly 400 villas built.

Mr Brown said the company was looking for a follow-on project and the Surfers site ticked all the boxes.

“The site is well positioned between Surfers and Broadbeach, is only 300m from the beach, and is 60m to the Nerang River.

“We couldn’t have done better.”