New light industrial hub planned for Gordonvale
Work is set to begin on a major development featuring storage, transport and trade operators, with a car wash and fast food restaurant in a move expected to position Gordonvale as a booming suburb of Cairns.
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Work is set to begin on a major development featuring storage, transport and trade operators, with a car wash and fast food restaurant in a move expected to position Gordonvale as a booming suburb of Cairns.
In May 2022 Cairns Regional Council approved a proposal from Stateland to undertake a seven lot development on a 13.9ha site at the corner of the Bruce Highway and Riverstone Rd.
Since then Melbourne-based company Riverstone Road North Holdings bought the site and have been successful in selling more than half of the land.
The development has been broken up into three distinct precincts — the first will be taken up with a fuel station and shop, a 12 bay car wash facility and a drive-through fast food restaurant.
The second will be a transport, distribution, and storage hub, while a third area was earmarked for a 250 student education facility but has since been rezoned as industrial land.
All up 23 lots are proposed.
Riverstone Road North co-director Peter Gilmer said Cairns firm Koppen Construction had been enlisted to start civil works at the site from next week.
“Phase one is sold out and with phase two we have plans to further subdivide,” he said.
“Of 110,000m/sq of land, 60,000sq/m is sold out and what remains is 50,000sq/m that has just been rezoned as industrial use.
“We have a major service station operator, a national removalist, a large distributor, and the others are all mixed light industrial uses.
“And we have some national food companies and a fast food drive through.”
In tandem with a number of ongoing submissions to Cairns Regional Council in the latest application lodged on May 6, Riverstone Road North Holdings applied to council for permission to reconfigure one lot into 14 separate lots while addressing conditions of previous approvals.
Mr Gilmer said the development was positioned at the southern fringe of an emerging housing estates at Mount Peter and near Gordonvale which he expected to be an area of significant future growth.
“This is our number one priority, we really want to make it a success and bring in as much employment as we can,” he said.
“It’s such a great position, it’s the first entry point to Cairns on the highway.
“You think about all the trucks coming straight off the highway from the estate.
“There are also a lot of food businesses that say they love the exposure.”
Riverstone Road North expects civil works to be completed by the end of October and finalisation of land titles should be done by the end of the year.
Construction by individual entities is expected to kick off from January next year and at the end of the year in 2026 it is hoped businesses will be operating.
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Originally published as New light industrial hub planned for Gordonvale
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