Gold Coast Mayor Tom Tate sells Surfers Paradise Islander Hotel Resort for $26.5 million

IT’S the tacky resort on prime real estate that Mayor Tom Tate has tried to offload for years and it’s finally sold, but it won’t be demolished.

The Islander

MAYOR Tom Tate has finally sold his Islander Hotel Resort in Surfers Paradise but says the $26.5 million deal does not mean he will be throwing vast dollars into his re-election campaign.

The buyer of the ageing property is major Brisbane nightclub owner Lou Bickle, sometimes referred to as the godfather of Fortitude Valley.

Cr Tate yesterday said Mr Bickle intended to refurbish the Islander and had no plans to demolish it.

RELATED: MAYOR TOM TATE AGREES TO SELL THE ISLANDER

Tom Tate had planned to renovate the Islander Resort Hotel for years. Picture: Gosling Richard

“I had Asian offers at slightly higher prices but I loved the idea of keeping a prime city asset in Australian hands.

“This deal means all the staff can choose to stay on and work for the Bickle family.

“A lot of them have worked at the Islander for 20 years or so and in my book, loyalty goes both ways.”

Mr Tate said he first met Mr Bickle more than a month ago.

“He’s an old-school bloke with no frills.”

Mayor Tom Tate’s campaign signs on the front of the Islander before he was elected.

Mr Bickle, a former teacher and one-time bookmaker, is overseas and could not be contacted yesterday.

The Bickle family businesses, run in tandem with sons Bevan and Raphael through the Katarzyna Group, include Cloudland, the Press Club, The Family and the Empire.

Mr Tate put the Islander on the market four years ago at $35 million.

During the build-up to the 2012 mayoral election he promised to sell the property if he became mayor to avoid any possible conflicts of interest.

A raft of parties looked at the property but many of the deals offered, some from offshore, were complicated.

The Bickle sale was negotiated over several weeks and was handled by Tony Bargwanna, of Ray White Hotels.

Mr Tate said settlement of the purchase could not take place until the Office of Gaming had undertaken probity checks on the buyer.

Mr Tate said the Islander sale did not mean he would be spending mountains of money on his re-election campaign.

“I don’t take voters for granted. I’ll spend enough to enable me to tell them that I want to finish my initiatives and to show what I can do in a new term.”