Gold Coast’s Biggest Land Play Still Unfolding After Four Decades

The late Bernard Lewis knew how to think big—and play the long game. More than two decades after his death, the Lewis Land founder’s vision is still shaping the northern Gold Coast. Surrounding the Harbour Town Premium Outlets at Biggera Waters—about 10km north of Surfers Paradise—the company is transforming a 34ha holding through a multibillion-dollar strategy that will deliver 3000 homes. “This is the biggest infill site… the biggest development on the Gold Coast by far,” Lewis Land head of development Michael Long says. “It’s going to be a multi-decade delivery and we’re just quietly chipping away at it.” The centrepiece is the $1.5-billion Harbour Shores, a 16ha canalfront masterplan for 2000 homes across two interconnected precincts—Harbour Shores South and Harbour Shores North—with a mix of midrise towers and waterfront villas. In recent weeks, buyers have begun settling on their off-the-plan purchases and moving into Waterline, Harbour Shores’ first tower. The six-storey building designed by BDA Architecture comprises 68 two and three-bedroom apartments as well as three double-storey so-called sky homes. It will be swiftly followed by the completion of a second tower—the 60-unit Palm House—in the Harbour Shores South precinct in February. Overall, the 16-stage project will deliver more than 30 buildings—ranging from two-storey villas to apartment towers up to 12 storeys—as well as parklands, a waterfront boardwalk and private marina berths. “We’ve got a good 10 years ahead of us on this site,” Long says. “It’s such a good site. We don’t want to leave any stone unturned.” ▲ Lewis Land head of development Michael Long: We don’t want to leave any stone unturned. Then there’s the broader pipeline for Lewis Land’s remaining Biggera Waters landholding—including Harbour Cove, which has approval for 511 homes across six midrise towers, as well as a proposed land lease community. “Bernard set the legacy and we’re keeping it going,” Long says. That legacy had its beginnings in the late 1970s and early 1980s when Sydney-based Lewis—once described as “probably the largest private land developer in Australia”—strategically shifted his development gaze north. “Back then in New South Wales, [state-owned developer] Landcom was getting all the good sites,” Long says. “So Bernard goes, ‘This sucks—I've heard there’s stuff going on up on the Gold Coast … and he just came up here and picked up a lot of land.” It has been touted that his company at one stage controlled 60 per cent of the Gold Coast’s available development footprint, enabling him to change the city’s urban landscape forever with waterfront canal estates at Runaway Bay, Paradise Point and Biggera Waters. Sovereign Islands—a luxury residential estate of six linked man-made islands in the Gold Coast Broadwater—was named after the self-made property magnate and champion helmsman’s 83-foot maxi yacht Sovereign . It was the largest maxi yacht in the world at the time and won both the line honours and the overall handicap in the 1987 Sydney-Hobart Yacht Race, as well as a slew of major international regattas. ▲ A rendering of the 16ha Harbour Shores canalfront masterplan that will deliver 2000 homes. “Bernard decided he wanted to build a waterfront development where everyone could park a maxi yacht out the front of their house, which was a great vision but very tough for those delivering it,” Long muses. Lewis also used his vast landholdings at the northern end of the Gold Coast as an opportunity to pioneer the outlet shopping concept in Australia, with Harbour Town at Biggera Waters opening in 1999 followed by other centres in Western Australia and South Australia. Long says Lewis Land’s Harbour Shores project is being developed on landholdings surrounding the Gold Coast retail centre that have been in the company’s hands for the past 45 years. “That’s through multiple market cycles and many offers, including from overseas interests in China and the US.” Founded in 1957, Lewis Land—now led by Lewis’s daughters Marnie and Shay—will celebrate its 70th anniversary next year. Over those seven decades, it has developed more than 20,000 residential lots and major masterplanned communities across Australia. But although the company is still Sydney-headquartered, the majority of its $4.5-billion pipeline is in Queensland—with its Harbour Shores project and other future surrounding development plans an all-in play on its decades-old land bet. ▲ The six-storey Waterline apartment tower, part of the first stage of Lewis Land's Harbour Shores project. “Lewis Land’s got a strong balance sheet. We call ourselves the oldest private property developer in Australia. No one’s told us otherwise and we’ve been saying it for a while now,” Long says. “But we’re really quite conservative from a financial analysis and investment perspective. We only deal with the big four banks, so we get very good construction finance. We’ll get construction finance and terms better than a lot of people in the market just because we’re considered a risk-free option for them.” Despite interest rate hikes, he says, sales interest has stayed strong for the Harbour Shores project, though some buyers had expressed concerns that their purchase may be worth less at settlement. “But the pre-settlement valuations have been coming in at either equal or up 10 per cent on what they paid,” Long says. “So it’s a good story in the current climate.” A planned light rail stop near the precinct is also shaping Lewis Land’s plans. “It’s put a bit of pressure on us to really make sure we get some residential density around Harbour Town,” Long says. Meanwhile, he says, Lewis Land and Vicinity—Harbour Town’s 50 per cent joint owner—are about to embark on a masterplanning exercise with midrise development an option on the table for the retail centre. But a residential play may not make sense given Lewis Land’s existing pipeline of 3000 homes on its doorstep. “When you consider that, there’s probably no market for it on the centre. So we’d probably be looking at some other complementary midrise uses like health, education, something like that.” Clearly, Lewis Land’s development strategy is staying the course. Think big, take the long view—and, as Bernard Lewis used to tell his yachting crew, ‘How do you spell fun?—W. I. N’.

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Phil Bartsch
Mon 09 Nov 26

Gold Coast’s Biggest Land Play Still Unfolding After Four Decades

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