Surfers Paradise $1bn Triple-Tower Project Feasibility Juggle

It was touted as one of the fastest-selling projects on the Gold Coast but almost four years after its approval the feasibility juggling act goes on for SPG Land’s $1-billion triple-tower Paradiso Place development. The Hong Kong-based developer has filed revised plans after undertaking an efficiency review “to achieve the economies of scale to maintain the economic viability of the project”. Under the reworked scheme, the proposed key changes include the addition of two storeys to each tower to accommodate an extra 46 units, increasing the project’s overall yield from 799 to 845 apartments. As a result, the three towers would increase from 38 to 40 storeys, 39 to 41 storeys and 43 to 45 storeys, but remain within the approved building heights by reducing floor-to-ceiling heights from 3m to 2.8m across all residential levels other than sub-penthouse and penthouse levels. A fourth basement level deemed “too costly and time consuming” to construct has been removed. The third basement level has been expanded, and visitor and commercial spaces moved to the ground level—reducing the total number of parking bays from 950 to 910. “SPG have resisted the urge to utilise or propose podium carparking outcomes on this site, even though such outcomes are cheaper to construct and quicker to build, because such an outcome would compromise the retail and resident recreation space at ground and podium level, being a unique and desirable marketing feature of the development,” the application said. As well, residential amenities have been relocated from level 26 to level 16 across all three towers and the communal open space design refined. A minor increase in commercial space from 2804sq m to 2843sq m is also planned. ▲ A rendering of SPG Land’s approved original Paradiso Place scheme, which has been reworked in a bid to stack up the project. “SPG is committed to constructing the proposed development,” a planning report submitted by Zone Planning Group said. “But in order to do so [we] have embarked on an extensive efficiency review of the development including a detailed examination of how the project can be constructed in a quicker timeframe involving less risk, without compromising the quality of the residential product and the commercial ground plane. “The general intent … is to achieve an economically viable outcome to enable the development to move forward to the construction phase as soon as possible.” The initial scheme for Paradiso Place—designed by architects Rothelowman—comprising 792 units and featuring an Australian-first suspended glass-bottomed swimming pool was given the green light by the City of Gold Coast Council in December of 2021. Since then, some minor changes have also been given the nod. ▲ In the change application, SPG Land says it is committed to constructing the proposed development. Earmarked for a 1.15ha block—bordered by Ferny, Pandanus, Ocean avenues as well as Surfers Paradise Boulevard—it is among a multi-billion-dollar cluster of 10 proposed highrises at the northern end of Surfers Paradise, including a stalled four-tower luxury resort-living precinct by Melbourne-based developer Gurner. “The proposed development is of a substantial scale and occupies a site which has been vacant for many decades,” the documents submitted for SPG Land’s latest change application said. “The site is one of a number of large vacant sites in northern Surfers Paradise which occupy valuable vacant land which is ripe for redevelopment.” But notably it also added: “The construction of a development of this scale at present is challenging from an economic perspective due to its scale, and ‘across the board’ construction cost increases which have resulted in a number of other tower projects in the city being mothballed.” SPG Land, headed by David Wang, acquired the Surfers Paradise site for $28 million in 2021 from Hyundai. It outlaid $4 million to build its sales centre—touted at the time to be the southern hemisphere’s largest—to launch Paradiso Place. The doors swung open in late 2021 and, claiming to be one of the Glitter Strip’s fastest-selling project, it reported a sell-out of the almost 260 units in its first two stages within 15 months.

Surfers Paradise $1bn Triple-Tower Project Feasibility Juggle

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