Commonwealth Games to generate $30 billion development boom for Gold Coast economy
A $30 billion development boom will spin out of the Commonwealth Games for the Gold Coast, which reveals for the first time the true impact of the sporting event on the city. And it reveals the best is yet to come.
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A COMMONWEALTH Games inspired wave of development will inject $30 billion into the Gold Coast’s economy in the next decade.
A comprehensive report on the Gold Coast’s economy and future will be released today revealing the scope of the projects, including at least $15 billion in projects, made up of apartments, housing and land developments which are still in the planning stages.
$13 BILLION OF DEVELOPMENT COMING FOR GOLD COAST
The report, compiled by property consultancy firm Urbis and Ray White Surfers Paradise, reveals:
* Nearly $20 billion in housing and apartments projects are either under construction or in the planning stages.
* A further $10 billion in public and private infrastructure is either underway or planned.
* More than 250 projects are being rolled out across multiple sectors, including the $615 million third stage of the light rail, $500 million Coomera Town Centre and future stages of the $385 million Gold Coast cultural precinct.
* Projects completed in the past 12 months account for around 20 per cent of the total figure.
Report author Lynda Campbell said almost $7.3 billion of projects are still in the planning phase.
She said the transportation sector was attracting the most spending — $4.2 billion — followed by tourism ($2.2 billion), which included hotels, motels and theme park features.
“These projects will drive future investment and have lasting effect in and around the areas on which they touch,” Ms Campbell said.
“While $2.4 billion in infrastructure development has been completed in the past 12 months, we still have $3.4 billion worth of projects currently under construction and a further $7.2 billion planned.
GOLDEN OLDIES’ $3.5 BILLION BOOM
“These projects are being delivered across a wide array of sectors ranging from transport, education and health to retirement, commercial and cultural.
“The data reflects the Gold Coast’s diversifying economy and demonstrates that there is plenty of growth yet to come for the city.”
Ms Campbell said the spending was spread across a variety of fields.
“Other major areas of infrastructure spending include the retail sector with $1.45 billion, retirement villages and aged-care facilities at $952 million, and health with $737 million,” she said.
According to the report, the sector with the greatest spend was transportation, with $4.3 billion of works planned over 52 projects.
Seventy-eight projects are in the pipeline in the service sector, which includes childcare, car parks, hotels, energy facilities and services stations, followed by transportation (52) and education (42).
More than 55 per cent of the projects are in the planning stage; 19 per cent have been completed in the past year; and 26 per cent are under construction, based on their total value.
COAST REAL ESTATE THE STATE’S BEST PERFORMER
Ray White Surfers Paradise chief executive Andrew Bell said many of the developments would not have been approved or even proposed if the city had not won and hosted the Commonwealth Games.
“The staging of the Games heralds the beginning of the next chapter of the Gold Coast’s evolution from a tourist town into a vibrant city with an expanding multidimensional economy,” Mr Bell said.
“There’s extremely high demand for housing on the Gold Coast thanks to strong population growth and the shortfall in new homes and apartments coming to the market over the past decade.
“As a result of the hiatus in development, we’ve had rental vacancy rate sitting at around one per cent for some time as well as significant pent-up demand for residential land in many areas of the city.
“In many ways we are playing catch-up to areas like Sydney and Melbourne which have experienced enormous price growth and development whereas on the Gold Coast the growth has only been measured.
“That’s great news as there is tremendous opportunity for capital growth heading into the future and we are seeing southern state money coming to the Gold Coast for that reason — there is great value here and great diversity of residential product.”
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