Work on four-tower Ruby project, to replace Paradise Resort, set to begin in October

A FOUR-TOWER project called Ruby is planned by Sydney developer William O’Dwyer for the site of Ferny Avenue’s Paradise Resort.

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A VERY family-focused ‘lady’ called Ruby is coming to town, courtesy of William O’Dwyer, a Sydney developer who in March became the largest landholder in Surfers Paradise.

Ruby is the name Mr O’Dwyer’s Ralan group has given a four-tower project planned on the site of Ferny Avenue’s Paradise Resort.

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The development is intended to retain the family flavour of the resort and will include a kids’ club and a teens’ hangout room.

There will be ground-level features, such as an internal road and a village green similar to those at The Oracle towers at Broadbeach.

Mr O’Dwyer wants to start work on the project in October, a move that will mark his Gold Coast debut.

Ruby will include some features similar to thosse found at The Oracle, Broadbeach.

His Ralan group has developed more than 2600 apartments, spread across 38 buildings, in Sydney in the past seven years.

The first Ruby towers, of 30 and 60 levels, will provide nearly 700 apartments.

The Welsh-born developer also plans at least two towers on a city block immediately south of the Paradise Resort.

That site is approved for towers of 44 and 48 levels but Mr O’Dwyer has indicated he will lodge a fresh planning application as part of a masterplanned precinct involving his two properties.

He bought the Paradise Resort site for $75 million in early March and later in the month secured the adjacent block for $19 million.

All up, he owns 3.7ha fronting Ferny Avenue at Budds Beach.

The popular Paradise Resort will be razed to make way for the new development.

The Paradise Resort is a family destination that opened in 1983, with part of it demolished in 2007 to make way for a tower planned but never started, by an earlier owner.

The balance of the resort is to be razed as Ralan progresses through its staged Ruby development.

The city council gave preliminary approval for four towers on the land in 2012 and Ralan has been going through a formal approvals process for the 60-level building.

The tower, designed by DBI, will sit above a two-level podium on the corner of Ferny and Norfolk avenues and will have 477 one, two and three-bedroom apartments.

The building will be crowned by two four-bedroom penthouses.

A convenience shop, cafe, wine bar and beauty salon will face Ferny Avenue and there will be a stand-alone family restaurant.

The 30-level tower, on the south-western corner of the resort site, will have 222 apartments and 13 streetfront townhouses.