CROWNING GLORY IN HOUSING ESTATE REVEALED
IT promises to be king of the hill – a swanky three-storey vertical triplex that looks down on the rest of an emerging housing estate in Smithfield.
The sprawling Canopy’s Edge subdivision is nearing its end with this final piece and another much larger luxury apartment complex shaping up as the icing on the cake.
Multi-millionaire property magnate Otto Pfeiffer has commanded a real estate portfolio throughout his life that most Australians could only dream about. He made headlines in 2016 after having kept the glorious three-kitchen, six-bathroom Villa Riverbend mansion on the Gold Coast on the market for 20 years straight without a sale, at that stage for a cool $15m asking price.
The property finally changed hands in February this year for $10.45m – considerably less than a $20m offer he previously turned down but well up on the $1.6m he bought the home for in 1996.
Mr Pfeiffer’s empire of dirt does not stop there.
He has been gradually selling Canopy’s Edge blocks around the Cairns Wake Park cable ski lake for more than a decade with development consultants New manor Pty Ltd overseeing the nuts and bolts.
Cairns Regional Council is yet to decide on a six-storey, 45-unit proposal for construction beside the lake after a development application was lodged in February.
The developer plans to follow that tower up with three more waterfront unit complexes, although plans for the next projects have not yet been lodged.
Now blueprints for a new three-storey triplex have been unveiled, with one unit per floor and a clever design meant to make the building “present as a single storey” or two storeys depending on the angle from the road.
The development application said Canopy’s Edge was “nearing the end of its development life”.
“Such a building has not been proposed on the estate before,” it continued.
“There is of course, some risk to the developer in investing in a building of its type, but the particular site conditions and construed market demand for residents wanting single level homes has dictated to the design, and they are willing to accept the risk and contribute to the future planning and growth of Cairns in a striking, but harmonious manner.”
No decision has been made.