Gold Coast property: Future of Robina’s former Austar building revealed

The future of one of the Gold Coast’s best-known office buildings, which was once home to defunct pay TV operator Austar, has been revealed.

A private Brisbane group has slipped in under the radar and picked up one of the Gold Coast’s big-four office blocks in what is looking like a snip of a $40 million deal.

The group is Exceed and the building is a Robina one best known under each of its previous names – Austar and then Foxtel.

Exceed, in what is the city’s biggest office deal in nearly 18 months, is paying $6 million below the six-level building’s previous sale, in 2015, and more than 30 per cent below replacement cost.

The 35 Robina Town Drive property is tipped to return 8.5 per cent a year to investors in an Exceed property fund once the purchase settles in August.

35 Robina Town Centre Drive

The seller of the A-grade building is a Centuria property fund, which bought it in 2015.

A property source says the deal came Exceed’s way after it was offered a chance to buy a Centuria building in Brisbane but declined.

It seems a ‘how about the Robina property’ query was made of Exceed, which jumped at the offer.

The buy is not the group’s first on the Gold Coast – it spent $12.6 million in 2021 on a Varsity Lakes office block and has pushed the occupancy level from 55 to 97 per cent.

Returns in the five-year fund that owns that property are running 34 per cent ahead of Exceed’s initial predictions.

The group was set up in 2016 and, with the Robina buy, will have assets under management of $250 million.

The founders were a couple of long-term property blokes in the form of Gavin Moore and Justin Clark who teamed up with Vaughan Hayne from the financial services industry.

Gavin Moore and Justin Clarke.

The Robina buy has delivered Exceed a near 10,000 sqm building with large floorplates and more than 80 per cent of the space taken by listed companies – customer services group Concentrix is on the Nasdaq exchange and Retail Food on the ASX – and multinationals.

Some of the smaller tenants are on short leases and, if they stay on, the new rates they pay are expected to reflect a tight office market – the vacancy level for A-grade space on the Gold Coast is 4.4 per cent.

The office building was developed in 2001 by an arm of Merrill Lynch, one that later became part of US group Blackrock.

At the time it was the third largest office building in the city, surpassed by Fifty Cavill Ave in Surfers Paradise and the Corporate Centre at Bundall.

It fell to number four in 2009 when The Rocket tower was completed at Robina.

A ‘divorce’ between two partners saw a half stake in The Rocket sold early last year for $43.5 million.

The building during the Austar era.

Pay-TV operator Austar was the first tenant in the Blackrock building, later superseded by Foxtel.

A decision by Foxtel to move its call-centre headquarters to Sydney five years ago blew out vacancy rates at Robina-Varsity Lakes.

There initially were moves to sub-let the Foxtel space of some 6000sq m but that idea was later aborted.

The remaining lease term was paid out and it appears Centuria reinvested some of the proceeds in the building, which today wears the Concentrix name.

Its work included refurbishing the foyer, solar panels, and new airconditioning condensers and cooling tower.

Meanwhile, the $40 million outlay by Exceed might not be the biggest Gold Coast office deal of 2023.

The figure will be topped if the city council goes ahead with its purchase of the Wyndham tower at the Corporate Centre.

$5.47M PURCHASE IN JEWEL

THE Chinese owner of the Jewel beachfront Surfers Paradise towers is gnawing away at its apartment holdings, aided by a $5.47 million sale.

The deal on the 261sq m home has pushed the settled-sales tally close to 40 and a sellout of an initial marketing tranche, called the Sovereign Collection.

The lowest price paid for a Jewel apartment is $674,000 for a 77sq m one and buyers have included billionaire car dealer and Sydney Roosters NRL chairman Nick Politis with a $2.843 million purchase.

BILLIONAIRE EYES MERMAID

Atlassian co-CEO Mike Cannon-Brookes. Picture: David Swan

MIKE Cannon-Brooks, a big spender who is one of the founders of $US35 billion software company Altassian, reportedly is revisiting the idea of buying a Gold Coast home.

He used a buyer’s agent to do some homework in 2020 and, as was the case previously, the Mermaid Beach oceanfront is a potential target.

Money won’t be an issue, as Mike has a net worth of $A 13.5 billion and in 2018 spent $100 million on a home at Sydney’s Point Piper.

‘BIG JOHN’ FINDS SANCTUARY

JOHN Zupp, a retired car dealer with major commercial property investments, quietly has added to his holdings at Sanctuary Cove, where he set a residential record 13 years ago.

‘Big John’, 91, and wife Wendy have spent $6.8 million on a harbourfront villa that cost previous owner Bert Smart $525,000 in 1987.

The Zupps in 2012 obliterated the Cove record with the $12 million buy of a home listed at $17.5 million and five years ago spent $4.5 million on another house in the resort.

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Originally published as Gold Coast property: Future of Robina’s former Austar building revealed