Ocean owner keeps development at bay
AHUSH HUSH move to build an apartment tower of “rock star” standard beside the ocean at Main Beach on land where a onetime “celebrity” building today sits appears doomed.
The move’s been initiated by property investor Steve Anderson, who already has a posh beachfront apartment tower approved a few doors away on Main Beach Pde.
His new plan involves scuttling boutique low-rise apartment building Ocean Resort and replacing it with a 20-storey tower with wholefloor apartments.
The owners of five of the six Ocean Resort apartments are on board but the remaining owner isn’t turning on the green light.
The reason for that apparently relates to some longstanding “unhappiness” with one of the other owners, according to sources.
The wiles of Steve, who’s been an owner in Ocean Resort since 2018, haven’t been enough to swing the unhappy owner around.
The former owner of Hayman Homes would not be the developer should the mooted project ever get off the ground.
There’s another party on board who would both fund a tower and build it. A value of around $3 million would be put on each apartment, with the penthouse included at double that figure and a small ground-floor apartment at considerably less than $3 million.
In return, the owners each would be given an apartment in the new building, swish pads estimated to be worth $7 million or so. Ocean Resort sits on an 1113sq m site on the corner of Breaker St and was built in the ’90s as “an exclusive venue for celebrities” visiting the Gold Coast.
The developer was a company controlled by Japanese businessman Eijiro Okuuchi but the “celebrity” idea didn’t have legs for long.
The Ocean Resort apartments were put on the market in 1998 and sold for between $200,000 (for the small one) and $614,000, with the penthouse selling for $1.44 million.
The penthouse, which spans 600sq m, re-sold for $4.95 million in 2008.
Interestingly, two of the 1998 buyers – both paid less than $600,000 – remain Ocean Resort owners today.
New-tower proponent Steve bought his 270sq m apartment for $2.2 million and gave it a major upgrade.
He has been given the nod to build a luxury 14-floor tower along the street on a $7.8 million site he bought in 2016 but is in no rush.
The tower, on land occupied by aged walk-up unit block Poppas, is intended to be the most luxurious developed at Main Beach since the adjoining Ocean Isles building was completed 30 years ago. The building mooted for the Ocean site would be of similar standard – or of rock-star status, to use an Anderson term.
Meanwhile, apartmenttower activity in Main Beach, stalled since the Macquarie Bank’s XXV tower was started 12 years ago, is warming up.
One tower, the Cerulean, is under way, another two are being marketed, and one is awaiting planning approval.