ON THE QT
Amalgamation of 16 beachfront property owners stand to make a motza from enterprising offer
Amalgamation of 16 Palm Beach beachfront property owners stand to make a motza from enterprising offer
SIXTEEN property owners at the humming suburb of Palm Beach could well have sweaty palms as they sit by the beach awaiting the outcome of one of the more adventurous site amalgamations of the year.
The reason – if a buyer comes along for what is a major beachfront site, then the average value of each of their holdings will approach the $1 million mark.
One of the potential sellers owns a unit bought for a mere $53,300 way back in 1981.
The most any of the other owners has paid is $980,000 two years ago and that was for a highway-front house at the back of the amalgamated site.
The undisclosed fellow who’s put the holding together has it on the market at $15.6 million but obviously he won’t be paying that much to the 16 owners if he does find a buyer.
He’ll get his own “earn” and also will be paying sales commissions to a couple of CBRE agents, Lachlan Harris and Mason Kidman, who have enjoyed a rather lucrative run on the Palm Beach beachfront this year thanks to an agedcare provider.
The new amalgamation exercise is the latest example of the rollicking surge in popularity that Palm Beach has enjoyed in the past couple of years, both with owneroccupiers and developers.
The biggest “play” under way is by the Sunland Group, with its Magnoli project on the former Palm Beach caravan park, a project that is to include two 12-level apartment towers.
Earlier this year, Regis, an old hand in the aged-care game, spent more than $15.6 million assembling a 3304sq m beachfront site, buy- ing the bulk of it from former motorcycle champion Mick Doohan.
Last month Don O’Rorke’s Consolidated Properties and a partner agreed to pay $16.25 million to buy the balance of the highway-front Pavilions residential-retail project.
Another high-spec boutique building has sprung up by the ocean, with former ABC Learning boss Eddy Groves reportedly in the development background.
The holding that’s on the market at $15.6 million has three street frontages – to The Esplanade, the highway, and Twenty-Fifth Ave.
The 2458sqm site is home to the Cannindah, Wistari Reef, Davidson Place and Glenarrow unit buildings, along with a house.
Its mixed-use zoning allows a building of up to 29m in height, which would take it above a boutique beachfront tower completed in 2015 two doors to the north.
That building is called La Vie, or The Life, and was undertaken by property veteran Bill McHarg, one of the founders in the ’70s of Colliers International.
A bundle of new owners could be enjoying the good life by the beach too within a couple of years if the amalgamated site finds a buyer and is developed.
THE NEW AMALGAMATION EXERCISE IS THE LATEST EXAMPLE OF THE ROLLICKING SURGE IN POPULARITY THAT PALM BEACH HAS ENJOYED.