A Chinese tycoon has agreed to buy the oceanfront International
Beach Resort in Surfers Paradise.
The buyer has plans for a five-star hotel on the site of the 22-level building.
The price of $65 million is believed to be substantially higher than Mr Fung would have outlaid had he gone ahead with a long-running option agreement.
The new deal is subject to due diligence and Foreign Investment Review Board approval.
Roland Evans, principal of the Canford Property Group, yesterday said the buyer was a developer and investor from southern China and was in his late 40s.
“He’s been looking for a hotel opportunity on the Gold Coast for two years,” said Mr Evans. “He intends to continue running the International Beach Resort for a couple of years or so, then to demolish it and build a five-star hotel.
“He doesn’t have any property on the Gold Coast but has a few holdings in Melbourne.”
The sale, if it goes ahead, will match the $65 million that Chinese group Forise paid last year for the site of the former Iluka high-rise in Surfers Paradise.
The Iluka site is 3494sq m, while the International Beach Resort is on a 3833sq m parcel with frontages to both The Esplanade and Surfers Paradise Blvd.
Mr Evans, who also handled the Iluka sale, said the latest deal illustrated the Chinese appetite for major Gold Coast properties was far from running out of steam.
“There’s still major demand for prime sites but … location is the prime factor,” he said.
The International Beach Resort was built in the late 1960s, one of the first Gold Coast buildings to top 20 storeys and originally was named the Apollo.
Japanese company Koshin bought it in the 1980s, selling it to Singapore’s Gertrude Guok for $11.4 million in 1993.
The property has 80 one-bedroom apartments and 40 hotel rooms.
Mrs Guok in March sold the Greenmount Resort at Coolangatta to the Sunland Group for $26 million.
Mr Fung, the former would-be buyer of the International Beach Resort, and partners in April settled the $36.5 million purchase of a complete city block in Surfers Paradise.
Original article published at www.goldcoastbulletin.com.au by Quentin Tod 1/6/16
