Artist's impression of the 2018 Gold Coast Commonwealth Games venue to be built.
The latest Queensland building approval figures, released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics, have broken the 5,000 mark for the month with industry executives crediting investors for the major increase.
Master Builders’ Deputy Executive Director Paul Bidwell said that 1,464 approvals were granted in January this year, compared with just 219 in the previous month.
Mr Bidwell believes the surge of 47.8% over the month was almost entirely due to the boost in approvals for multi-unit residential construction on the Gold Coast, with the 2018 Commonwealth Games Village suspected to account for most of these.
"While its impossible to say for certain at this stage, we are pretty confident the spike is associated with infrastructure for the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games, which is the most significant project in the region at present," said Mr Bidwell.
"Putting the Gold Coast figure aside (where an astounding 568.5% growth was recorded for the month), there was still a strong rate of growth in January, with the figures overall representing a good start to 2015 and a significant improvement on the two previous months which have been relatively quiet.
"Growth has no doubt centred on the south east, with greater Brisbane and the Sunshine Coast showing the strongest improvement, growing by 7.2% and 13% respectively, and Wide Bay also bounced back with growth of 26.3% after a quiet December," he said.
