ONLY WAY IS UP FOR ZENONOS
Sea a luxury addition to landscape at Main Beach
LOUIS Zenonos, a versatile investor who has developed an appetite for the Gold Coast, appears to have kicked a sandy goal on what could be called Katie’s turf.
Last year he embarked upon a Main Beach property development foray, ostensibly going head to head with Harvey Norman’s top executive, Katie Page, on the beachfront.
The 52-year-old Louis arrived on the scene as Katie was well under way with a luxury eight-level boutique tower, M3565, where prices started at around $5 million and where the penthouse was carrying an $11 million “sticker”.
Louis paid $8.2 million for a beachfront site along the road and immediately was under way with his own eight-floor serving of luxury.
It appears he wasn’t worried about competing with a woman worth $80 million or so – he already had buyers lined up for spots in the tower when he pressed the project’s go button.
The Zenonos tower, simply called Sea, is expected to be finished by late January and any aspiring buyer has little in the way of choice – the word is that only one apartment is available.
If a buyer moseyed along to the Virginia Kerridgedesigned Page tower, which was completed earlier this year, they would have multiple apartments from which to choose.
Katie has opted to keep the two-level penthouse for her and billionaire hubby Gerry, the Harvey Norman joint founder and chairman.
A buyer willing to spend around $5.5 million apparently has been doing some serious ogling of the ground-floor apartment.
Katie’s “rival”, Louis, hails from Brisbane, where in the late 90s he was heavily into the cafe business.
He went on to invest in the Ezidebit payment system and is believed to have scored tens of millions when he sold his investment into a $305 million buyout by a US group three years ago.
He popped up publicly on the Gold Coast several months later when he bought two Broadbeach office blocks.
His seven-title Sea venture at Main Beach was a ready-togo project lined up by a founder of the Colliers real estate chain, Bill McHarg, who has stayed aboard as project manager.
Bill was behind the Baden Goddard-designed La Vie boutique tower at Palm Beach, winner of the 2015 HIA Queensland apartment of the year title.
He’s bought two of the Zenonos apartments, is keeping one, has the other on the market with a $4.5 millionplus “ask”, and probably is hoping Sea, too, will win an
HIA gong.
Other residents in SEA apparently will be Cairns cardealer Greg Eastment and a mystery party who reportedly has bought two apartments.
And the two-level penthouse?
That’s a new home for Louis, who’s selling a beachhouse at Platinum on the Beach in Surfers, bought for $3.5 million in 2008.