Thursday, 25 August, 2016
The Sunshine Coast’s CBD ‘twin towers’ set to open by December.
Fifty thousand cubic metres of concrete and two years after the huge project began, construction of Pratt Property’s Kon-Tiki building is steaming towards completion in December. And its “twin towers” are to provide a home to more action than you might think. They’re not just commercial towers, and they’re not apartment blocks. The developers of Kon-Tiki on Plaza Parade are aiming for something different.
The giant new urban offering will provide new restaurants and a range of offices, including a co-working space. A roof deck, barbecue facilities for staff and clients, flexible offices and modern meeting and boardroom facilities will be for hire. Offices will be interspersed with dining spaces for licensed restaurants, pop-up street food and juice bars. Perhaps the most notable feature will be an ancient 6m-high Tiki sculpture in the dining atrium – a centrepiece surrounded by greenery, ferns and trickling water.
If Pratt Property’s La Balsa development in Brisbane Road, Mooloolaba is anything to go by, the Kon-Tiki project will fast become a daytime hub. Mooloolaba café Your Place occupies a ground floor tenancy at La Balsa, and manager Blair Rochell said having offices directly above (a feature also planned at Kon-Tiki) made a huge difference to Your Place’s success. “We’re super busy all the time,” she said. “My boss has only owned this venue for a year, but beforehand it was pumping as well.” The complex has an almost hotel-like feel, with a modern lobby between shops and a lift to upstairs offices. Office workers come down for lunch and breaks, for coffee and after work, she said. The clean, professional feel was a hit, as staff felt comfortable in the space. “My whole venue is filled because of the venue upstairs,” Ms Rochell said. Kon-Tiki and La Balsa are Pratt Property’s flagship projects, both named after rafts that sailed vast voyages across the Pacific Ocean.
The Kon-Tiki raft left French Polynesia in 1947, smashing into a reef at the Tuamotu Islands 101 days later but becoming the first “primitive sea craft” to travel such a distance in those times, the website states. The La Balsa raft ended its voyage in 1970 when it landed successfully at Mooloolaba beach. Pratt Property picked the site, which occupies a large block on Plaza Parade, because it will be in the heart of the new Maroochydore CBD. “With the Sunshine Plaza expansion adjacent to the development along with the neighbouring Sunshine Cove residential estate, several reputable car dealerships, Maroochy Homemaker Centre and the new Bunnings and Officeworks superstores, it was evident that Maroochydore will be the new hub for business and leisure on the Sunshine Coast,” spokeswoman Steph Peters said. Kon-Tiki was the “front runner” in this bold new project, she said, and there was a huge amount of excitement among the hundreds of construction workers and other staff as the project neared completion. “Kon-Tiki is a totally new concept.”
Sunshine Coast Daily
Posted in Press Clippings
