An apartment tower to rival Brisbane’s tallest will be constructed in the first stage of the city’s $3 billion Queens Wharf casino-resort development.
Industry sources said the 90-storey tower is expected to equal Brisbane’s highest at 274m, the city’s height limit imposed by aviation authorities.
A spokesman for the international joint venture delivering the development, Destination Brisbane Consortium, declined to comment on the apartment tower, saying it would lodge the plan of development for the transformational integrated resort to Economic Development Queensland in coming months.
“This plan will contain specific design details,” he said.
The project’s three apartment towers, totalling 2000 units, will be developed in a 50-50 partnership between Hong Kong-listed Far East Consortium and Chow Tai Fook. The entire development including the purpose-built casino is structured under a 25 per cent split for the China-based companies and a 50 per cent stake from The Star.
In an interim report to the Hong Kong stock exchange, Far East Consortium said its initial equity investment was $193 million. Together with its portion of the “land premium” for the residential component, Far East expects to pay $226m.
The Australian this week revealed that the consortium had to revise plans for the pedestrian bridge link to popular South Bank late last year, when authorities realised it landed on the level of the casino’s gaming floor, about four floors above ground. It will now arrive one level lower, on a retail level of the podium.
It is understood the 4m-wide bridge is costed into the development as a $100m-plus contribution. It is to be named Neville Bonner Bridge after Australia’s first indigenous parliamentarian.
The development will include the new casino, underground shopping mall, 50 restaurants, five international hotels, three residential towers and the redevelopment of heritage buildings across 9.4ha of riverfront land.
The development will also create parklands underneath the Riverside Expressway and jut out into the Brisbane river.
The staged “brick by brick” demolition of three former government buildings will start within months. This includes the 1999 Australian Institute of Architects’ award-winning Neville Bonner Building and the Conrad Gargett-designed Executive Building.
The first stage — building the casino and hotel components — has to be complete by 2022 to comply with the state government contract. The multi-stage residential offering that will span 167,000sq m of gross floor area can be delivered until 2035.
The total development area is about 544,600sq m, including the residential area. It is expected to bring an additional 1.39 million visitors to Brisbane annually.
Originally Published: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/