New projects put Airlie back on map
By Kathy Mac Dermott.
Sep 6, 2004, 17:45
Queensland’s Airlie Beach is coming into the international spotlight, with a raft of projects targeting the seriously wealthy.
While many developers and businessmen on the Whitsunday mainland like to tout Airlie Beach as Australia’s own version of Monaco, the reality is the tourist township has been predominantly a mecca for international backpackers and sailors.
Its fortunes remain hostage to airline accessibility and global tourism trends. But there is definitely a change in the air.
Ivana Trump has never been to the Great Barrier Reef but she is happily lending her name and design skills to a $150 million luxury unit development in Airlie Beach. The United States businesswoman says she is taking a hands-on role in the creation of the ambitious project, and can bring to the table 20 years’ involvement in real estate. Much of this experience came in the development of the Trump Tower, Plaza and Casinos in the US, working with her now ex-husband Donald Trump.
Trump says she is a keen property collector, owning “about seven” homes around the world but she thinks Airlie Beach will offer is a sanctuary. “I have everything in the world, thank God, but something I don’t have very often is privacy,” she says. She is snapping up one of the 42 apartments, which will retail for between $3.3 million and $6.5 million.
The developers of the Ivana Trump Great Barrier Reef complex, Aquiplan aim to provide a new level of security, but it will not take the shape of high fences.
Instead, Aquiplan chief executive John Stavrou says the latest technology will deployed to ensure residents will be able to relax in seclusion.
The palatial development is being built on a 1.095 hectare elevated site overlooking the Abel Point marina. It is part of the Shingley Beach – Whisper Bay precinct that is attracting hundreds of millions of dollars worth of development and setting new prices for the region.
Over the past four years the Whitsunday mainland has been attracting increasing attention, but now the activity has jumped to a new level and the big end of town is rolling into Airlie Beach.
The entrepreneurs who got in early have reaped hefty dividends and include PRDnationwide’s cofounders Archie and Gordon Douglas and Sydney Tycoon, Lang Walker, who have all carved up and sold prime landholdings to developers.
Luxury accommodation stock levels are set to surge over the next two to three years. Retail offerings beyond the existing tourist strip of predominantly holiday fashion and souvenir shops is also set to broaden.
One of the most enthusiastic participants in the building rush is Brisbane private developer Kevin Seymour who recently snared his third site on the hillside next to the Trump development. The acquisition is earmarked for a $20 million apartment complex. It will overlook the 42-unit Peninsula project which is being undertaken in joint venture with listed construction company Watpac.
In the fist 11 weeks of selling the Peninsula off the plan, 34 unconditional contracts were locked in at an average price of $1.5 million and two additional contracts issued, agent David Crompton says.
Of the six blocks of land in the waterfront project, deposits have been taken on four lots. Crompton says increased ownership of luxury boats has proven to be a sales catalyst, with each Peninsula unit offered with a lease over a berth in the nearby marina.
If buyers don’t want the berth, $150,000 is sliced off the asking price but so far Crompton says no-one has taken up this option.
Mario Demartini is experiencing the pressures of Airlie Beach’s soaring popularity first hand. As mayor of the Whitsunday Shire Council, he is grappling with the provision of sewerage services for his burgeoning region, which includes Airlie Beach. He says there are $1.5 billion worth of developments either being approved or on the drawing board, with $210 million worth of projects being given the green light at a recent council meeting.
This week FKP lodged a development application for its long-awaited Outrigger resort and retail project adjoining Airlie’s $8.4 million public swimming lagoon. Despite the company having won preferred developer status in December 2002 with Eumundi Brewing, finalising access and rental agreements with the local authority and state government has been protracted.
FKP’s Queensland residential development manager Matthew Miller says the $35 million project will comprise 63 units, totaling 126 rooms. The units will be sold to investors at between $450,000 and $650,000 but must go in the pool to be operated by the Outrigger chain.
Miller hopes work will start in the second quarter of 2005, for an opening by Christmas 2006.
A key development for Airlie Beach’s central precinct is the Port of Airlie marina and residential project being undertaken by Brisbane developers Russell McCart and Peter Marshall.
The long-awaited project will focus retail and dining activities along the main waterfront strip.
The plan for the site, once earmarked by the late Christopher Skase for a Mirage resort development, includes about 365 apartments, a 140-room hotel and 15 ocean-front housing lots. Approval is imminent .
One of Airlie Beach’s major property owners and managing director of the listed Queensland Tourism Industries, Michael Hackett, reckons Airlie has enjoyed a burst of energy in the past couple of months.
He is enthusiastic about the wave of mooted projects and expects that southern investors will latch onto the region, just as they discovered Noosa in the late 1980’s. “I think it (the development) is great,” he says. “It’s bringing a whole new level of moneyed people to the region.”
The cheaper airlines flying into Hamilton Island and Proserpine, as well as Mackay, have strengthened Airlie’s long term prospects, but as the collapse of Ansett again demonstrated in 2001, the heath of the entire Whitsundays depends on air accessibility. Investors must also keep in mind the fact that Airlie Beach is a small regional market, and property analysts warn these are quick to suffer when the overall residential market nosedives.
Delivery of the latest wave of projects will also be a key issue, with a high demand for builders and tradespeople along the Queensland coast putting pressure on the construction industry.
Long-time agent PRDnationwide’s Christie Leet says the big change in the current Airlie Beach market is the rate of sales off the plan. Until last year, the $1 million barrier for a residential sale had not been exceeded. Now, Leet says, about 27 percent of the apartment project sales are above the $1 million benchmark, with almost 50 percent of the buying activity coming from locals.
“I’ve never seen it like this before,” Leet says. “It’s real people with real money and a reason to be here, not just the punters like before.”
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