Joint forces at play in the southern bay
THE latest hunt for a development pot of gold beside the ocean at Coolangatta’s Rainbow Bay is not what it first appeared to be – a one-man show.
Company Wally Development last month filed a development application for a 12level tower on the bay’s high ground, close to the Greenmount Resort.
Wally’s is owned by Lu Li, who arrived in the country as a teenager more than 30 years ago and went on to gain degrees in law and finance.
His family built the first Quest hotel in Brisbane.
It has emerged that Lu is far from flying solo at Rainbow Bay – his foray is via Brisbane company CapDev, in which he has teamed up with former corporate property players Oliver Bagheri and Jon Quayle.
CapDev also is not flying solo – it has a couple of Gold Coast property industry jointventure partners, one being Joel and Laura Percey’s Kingabella group.
The other is Rob Steer’s Steer Developments, which is involved in plans to undertake a $50m redevelopment of the Ashmore Steak and Seafood restaurant site.
It seems the three companies tied the development knot a year or so ago and quickly committed to boutique ventures at Palm Beach and Tugun.
The 94-apartment Rainbow Bay tower is earmarked for a four-title holding assembled over six months in Eden Ave, a one-way street.
The JV is believed to be paying $13m or more for the
land, which adjoins a site on which Christie Leet’s Sherpa group is building 16 homes.
The Arvia tower, where prices have topped $3m, is nearby on the opposite side of Eden Ave, and Brisbane architect Joe Adsett is planning a 13-floor tower, Rockpool, next to the Greenmount resort.
The CapDev team’s move comes as Paul Gedoun, the Brisbane developer who has already found a couple of pots of gold nearby with elite towers
Flow and Point Danger’s Awaken, is well on the way to another win.
His Esprit, a $130m venture that sits between Eden Ave and Boundary St, locked in $71m of sales in its first weekend on the market.
The CapDev JV is cutting its Gold Coast teeth with Callista, four “beach houses” at Palm Beach which start at $1.785m.
The partners also are chasing approval for another six,
starting at almost $2m, at Tugun.
Property insiders say the partners are negotiating more than $20m worth of new sites, including a waterfront one at Surfers Paradise and boutique one at Coolangatta.
Prices in the planned Rainbow Bay tower, which will include three town homes, have been tipped to start in the $800,000s.
The building, if it is given a planning green light, will not be launched until next year and is likely, given the Gedoun success at Esprit, to have little new stock with which to compete.
Meanwhile, the three men behind CapDev have more to focus on than the Gold Coast joint ventures.
Their company says it has $250m worth of its own projects across southeast Queensland and that it is also backing other developers, builders and property-related businesses.