Hotel looks a starter

Long-term $2m punt on piece of Gold Coast turf could be paying off big time for Corcoris Group

A COMPANY linked to Michael Corcoris, a Melbourne and part-time Gold Coast developer, finally might be riding home a winner on a near $2 million punt taken 15 years ago on some Gold Coast “turf”.

The land nestles beside the front straight at the Gold Coast Turf Club in Bundall’s Racecourse Drive and over the years has been mooted for a hotel, apartments, a tavern, and fast-food outlets.

It’s now emerged that the 1.22ha site could indeed be set to house a hotel under a grand plan to make the precinct the city’s premier entertainment destination.

Bundall Racecourse Pty Ltd, of which Michael is a director, apparently has a heads of agreement with the turf club that could lead to a hotel and apartments on the company’s 1.22ha site, in tandem with some club land on the northern boundary.

News of the hotel plan emerged earlier this month when the club announced a three-year naming rights deal with Honkers billionaire Tony Fung’s Aquis Australia that will see the racecourse renamed Aquis Park, home of the Gold Coast Turf Club and Events Centre.

The Corcoris company bought its triangular-shaped parcel – owned by the turf club until the late 1980s – for $1.9 million in 2002.

A few years later it appeared set to enjoy a fat dividend but the GFC intervened and a potential sale – perhaps at more than $6 million – never left the starting gates.

A 2013 auction saw the site passed in at a vendor bid of $3 million and later it emerged billionaire developer Bob Ell, who owns land across the road, had made an offer well below that figure.

Michael Corcoris and the Corcoris Group undertake land and housing projects and six years ago they walked away from an offer to buy the Pakenham racetrack in Melbourne’s southeast, apparently for $38 million. Michael via another company has been a player in the Gold Coast growth corridor, principally with development of the 250lot Waverley Views estate.

Just who will develop the mooted trackside hotel at the Gold Coast Turf Club is very much up in the air and any plan will be subject to Queensland Racing blessing.

If the hotel does go ahead, it’s far from a lay down misere that Tony Fung will be involved in the development.

It seems that if he is interested in a hotel role, or in any other property projects on turf club land, he might have to join a queue of developers who already have signalled they want to talk turkey to the turf club.

Future development at the turf club could see apartment towers on the western side of Racecourse Drive and multilevel carparks.

THE LAND HAS BEEN MOOTED FOR A HOTEL, APARTMENTS, A TAVERN, AND FAST-FOOD OUTLETS