Pop-Out Apartments Power GemLife’s $450m Vertical Experiment

Pop-out apartments may prove a “build-to-rent killer” as GemLife’s vertical land lease community progresses. Newly ASX-listed GemLife was approved for its seven-building, 250-unit over-50s development at Currumbin Waters in March, and the $450-million experiment has since caught the industry ’s attention. While GemLife group chief executive Adrian Puljich is modest about the nuts and bolts of the product, he is confident about the concept of vertical land lease. “We know that land lease communities chew up a lot of land. Opportunities for what we do, particularly in areas where our customers want to live, are growing thinner and thinner,” Puljich tells The Urban Developer . ▲ GemLife group chief executive Adrian Puljich: Innovate or die. “We haven’t done anything groundbreaking, we have simply taken various methods and adapted them to suit vertical products, while acknowledging the regulatory framework. “It’s innovate or die. That’s the reality of this sector.” And vertical land lease could be a game-changer for the wider industry, Puljich says. “If we can demonstrate the plausibility of this product type in a vertical setting, there’s no reason developers who are already doing high-end luxury apartments or the build-to-rent model, wouldn’t look at it and say, ‘That’s the path we’re going to forge’.” Pop-out apartments The mechanics of vertical land lease have been a subject of interest given the various regulatory requirements for land lease across the country. “The idea is that the apartments act like a watertight unit,” Puljich says. “A layman’s way of describing it is if you imagine a chest of drawers, the carcass [the drawer framework] would be retained by the park owner. “The customer would be purchasing the ‘drawer’ itself, and that can be removed at any time.” All units in the planned buildings are removable, Puljich says. “So you could pull it out and connect it to surfaces on the ground and continue living in it, with its own doors and windows on all sides which are covered by internal gyprock until [the units] are taken out.” ▲ Rendering of the Currumbin Waters project that will comprise a four-level building and 6 three-level blocks. However, it helps that traditionally buyers in these communities do not remove their homes, partly because of the time, effort and cost. “It’s also not so much the home itself that retains the value, it’s the location. That’s where the intrinsic value sits, so it’s not plausible to suggest that it holds the same value as if it were to stay in the community.” If a homeowner did want to leave and potentially sell the unit back, however, there are not necessarily workable provisions for that scenario—yet. “Queensland has introduced buyback ... a bit of a long-winded, clunky and convoluted mechanism ... which the Government itself is grappling with as to how to implement,” Puljich says. As GemLife keeps an eye on the outcome of that process and what it might mean for the sector, the state has extended the implementation by 12 months to consider how it would work in practice. Regulatory frameworks The design of units has been beholden to fragmented regulatory frameworks across the various states and territories, Puljich says. “I wanted to make sure that this product type can satisfy every single regulatory framework in the country and we can demonstrate mobility and movability. “We see Victoria as having the most stringent requirements; not only does the dwelling need to be movable but it needs to be movable within 24 hours,” Puljich says. “We don’t want to change our build method depending on the state in which we are operating, so if you can satisfy Victoria, you will essentially satisfy the rest of the country.” ▲ The GemLife apartments are aimed at the luxury end of the downsizer market. The City of Gold Coast has been amenable to the project, Puljich says, building on GemLife’s more-than-40-year reputation for development in the area. “They recognise that we are a proven developer and operator, and were willing to have an open mind. “And it’s important to note that this was an eight-year approval process, so it’s not something that happened in 12 months or 24 months.” Queensland regulation might not be as restrictive as that of Victoria, but it still requires land lease homes to be designed to be moved and have the “character of a dwelling house”, Puljich says. ▲ Wildlife corridors have been included in plans for the 13.9ha Currumbin site. This means that a vertical land lease product could not be an affordable one at this stage. “[This product works] in locations where the median house price is well above a million dollars, and we know that those locations are predominantly in the southern markets, in the middle outer rings of Melbourne and Sydney CBDs. “Currumbin Waters is obviously a very highly desirable location in the southern end of the Gold Coast. “And by being able to deliver the vertical product whilst also delivering the usual facilities that you would see in a GemLife community, we have the opportunity to deliver something that’s both unique and of very high appeal to the downsizer market.” Retirement experiment While the Currumbin Waters project has not launched to market yet, initial feedback has been positive—including that GemLife’s IPO, which raised $750 million in capital , the largest 2025 launch to date. “There’s been recognition from homeowners that we are a strong business, and we’ve been encouraged by their feedback,” Puljich says. “From an investor perspective, the demand has been overwhelming. “There is such insatiable demand from downsizers, there’s just simply not enough facilities or operators to deal with what’s ahead of us.” The GemLife vertical land lease community model on its own might not be able to fill this gap in the short term, as Puljich expects the Currumbin Waters experiment to take up to five years to build, although that is less of a concern given its $500-million broadacre pipeline . ▲ The Currumbin development includes a three-level country club with a 55-seat cinema, bowling alley, 25m indoor lap pool with spa and wine room. “We recognise that this is breaking ground on a new product type. “So for us, it’s making sure we get it right and not getting ahead of ourselves, and making sure that we can deliver apartments to the standard that one would expect within a GemLife community.” Not running before they can walk is a key strategy for vertical land lease, even though opportunities for new sites regularly crop up, Puljich says. “We want to first give confidence to the market and our investors that this product type works. “But we look forward to opening the eyes of not only traditional broadacre developers, but having the traditional vertical developers looking at this as being a viable alternative to what they’re already doing.” Adrian Puljich is among presenters for The Urban Developer’s Land Lease Development Summit to be held on September 11. 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Pop-Out Apartments Power GemLife’s $450m Vertical Experiment

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