Eight-Tower $2.5bn Vision for Final Piece of Gold Coast Urban Puzzle

The vision for the final piece in a decades-old urban puzzle on the Gold Coast has finally been revealed. Up to eight towers delivering 1250 apartments are part of a $2.5-billion masterplan for the long-dormant 5.4ha waterfront site It is the last undeveloped parcel from a 343ha land holding surrounding Bond University upon which the suburb of Varsity Lakes rose in the late 1990s. Swooping on the site in a $45-million deal that settled in 2022, Cru Collective—led by developer Chris Bolger—has spent four years conceptualising and creating the framework for Lake Orr Urban Village, its working title for the precinct. “Projects of this scale require so much upfront planning,” Bolger told The Urban Developer . But with major hurdles resolved—having worked through extensive flooding and traffic issues with council and other authorities—he is now targeting a start to construction in early 2027, subject to approval. “The site has sat there for 30 years, drastically underutilised,” Bolger said. “But no one will be more excited than I will after four years of planning to get into construction and delivery,” he said. A newly lodged application seeking preliminary approval for the masterplan as well as the green light for its first stage—an 18-storey tower comprising 138 apartments—has taken the covers off the site’s future. ▲ An aerial view of the long dormant 5.6ha site—next to Bond University and fronting Bermuda Street—bordering Varsity Lakes and Burleigh Waters. According to the documents, a height envelope of 109m—equivalent to about 30-plus storeys—is planned for future towers that would fan out along the waterfront, linked by ground-level tree-lined paths and podium-top recreation decks with pools, gyms, barbecue facilities, landscaped seating areas. “That’s just a maximum height,” Bolger said. “At the moment, the average across those eight planned towers is somewhere around 21 storeys. “It just gives us some flexibility down the track to adjust and redesign to where the market is at because this will be a 10 to 12 year delivery program, and those forces will change in that timeframe.” As well as its sizeable residential component, the urban village blueprint designed by DBI Architecture encompasses a central publicly-accessible 2000sq m park and also features a waterfront plaza and 600m boardwalk along its lakeside perimeter. The staggered, sawtooth positioning of the precinct’s towers provided the scope to integrate a large quantity of publicly accessible open spaces. ▲ The masterplan propsosal for developer Cru Collective’s Lake Orr Urban Village precinct. Fronting Bermuda Street—at the southern end of the city’s Southport-Burleigh corridor—a lowrise boutique marketplace-style retail village comprising 27 tenancies across 3800sq m of net lettable area is also incorporated into the scheme. Additionally, other sites within the precinct have been earmarked for childcare or medical uses with a view to creating an everyday convenience spine for residents. In 2024, Cru Collective carved off a 3600sq m portion of the site—selling it Odyssey Lifestyle Care Communities, which has plans for a vertical retirement village as part of the precinct. “Such a prominent site within the city demands activation,” a planning report prepared by Urban Planning Services said. “The Lake Orr Urban Village is intended to be an exemplar of an urban infill development. [It] represents the opening chapter in the delivery of a long-awaited landmark development, designed to benefit both residents and the wider community…revitalise the dormant site and create an infill urban neighbourhood. ▲ Renderings of the 18-storey apartment tower planned for the precinct’s first stage and market-style retail village ( bottom left ). “The proposed development will see this inland centre become a notable node within the city and provide the missing puzzle piece to create a vibrant and appealing urban area.” A submitted architectural statement of intent said the proposal was seeking to create a “family of highrise buildings…an iconic inland centre”. “This concept of a family of buildings is not unfamiliar on the Gold Coast. There are some notable examples…including the Star Gold Coast masterplan and the Jewel development.” Bolger said the masterplan was focused on livability and convenience rather than ultra-luxury. “Our vision for the site is to provide a genuine mixed-use, multi-generational community where you’ve got a meaningful amount of appropriate residential development,” Bolger said. ▲ A rendering of the first of up to eight waterfront residential towers proposed in the Lake Orr Urban Village masterplan. “And what I mean by that is, we’re not on the beachfront. We’re not seeking to target $25,000 a square metre for product. It’s more of an attainable product being delivered hand-in-hand with that convenience retail and community amenity.” Bolger said as the Gold Coast marches toward a population of one million residents, inland centres such as the proposed Lake Orr Urban Village would increasingly shoulder the “heavy lifting” of much-needed residential supply. “I think these inland centres will start to play a bigger role in the city plan in future,” he said. “Certainly, we’re a very linear city but you can’t just jam everything along the beachfront. “I just don’t think that’s viable, and these inland centres…they’re going to have to do some of the heavy lifting in due course to be able to house everyone and to share the future population growth.”

Apartments
Phil Bartsch
Sat 13 Jun 26

Eight-Tower $2.5bn Vision for Final Piece of Gold Coast Urban Puzzle

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