Monday, 8 February, 2016
A new future for the Sunshine Coast begins on Thursday when Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk “turns the sod” on a 50-hectare new development in the heart of Maroochydore.
Over the next 20 years, an old golf course at Maroochydore will become a new Sunshine Coast city CBD, complete with commercial buildings, retail section, a hotel and an exhibition centre, lined with canals and parkland.
The new city concept is called SunCentral and is being developed by a private company set up by Sunshine Coast Regional Council.
Independent economic analysis says “in the next five years the development of the city centre will add more than $350 million to the state economy, with $2.3 billion in value added to the Queensland economy over the next 25 years.”
Over the 20 years it is expected to create 10,000 jobs in construction, consultancies and engineering design.
SunCentral is chaired by Queensland’s former under treasurer and high-profile executive Doug McTaggart, while former Brisbane City Council chief executive Jude Munro is also on its board of directors.
Maroochydore’s old golf course – the Horton Park Golf Course – was relocated across the Maroochy River onto former cane land in 2015 and has re-opened with increasing membership.
SunCentral project director Mark Salmon said a “seven-figure” earthworks contract would completely re-shape the central Maroochydore site as the first part of the 20-year puzzle.
“That involves stripping the site and making sure that we get bulk earthworks and sewerage works in the right location,” he said.
“And that includes a major relocation of the major electrical mains.
“The re-routing of the main 11KV electrical mains running under the golf course is a major job and that is a significant part of the works,” he said.
Mr Salmon said the planning team had designed a grid pattern for future development and wanted to realign the underground electrical supply with the new layout, which includes new streets, new parks and new buildings.
“It is preparing all of the bulk site works that need to happen prior to the civil earthworks firms coming on site and laying all of the underground pipe work and building the roads,” he said.
It will take about 16 weeks for the bulk earthworks phase, which should finish in June.
Mr Salmon said the project team would then award the contract for the second phase of the development.
“By June we expect we will have awarded a contract for the civil works, all the internal electrical reticulation works and the landscape construction,” he said.
“And those works we expect will take another 10 months.
“Which means that we are currently budgeting on completely finishing stage 1A of the project around by about March 2017,” he said.
SunCentral chief executive John Knaggs said the work beginning on Thursday was the real start of the project.
“The first phase of earthworks should be finished around June, paving the way for construction of new city streets, landscaping, parkland and public areas to commence,” Mr Knaggs said.
He said the SunCentral Maroochydore project would consolidate urban density in a new CBD.
“That will make sure high density development occurs in appropriate locations with significant opportunities for innovative and sustainable design,” he said.
“This project will help address many of the current access, transport and commercial issues that have held Maroochydore back from becoming the main city centre of the Sunshine Coast, as it was always intended to be,” he said.
Stage 1 includes 450 residential apartments, while overall 40 per cent of the 20-year development will remain open space.
Mr Salmon said SunCentral was yet to seek approaches from hotel or retail chains in the site.
“We wanted to get works underway on the site, but I would be expecting by the middle of this year we will be in the marketplace actively talking to prospective tenants,” he said.
“And for developers interested in building buildings.
“Am I optimistic? In a word ‘Yes’.”
“We are not in the market, but we are already getting approaches from interested parties in a range of professional services, professional residential providers and education services.”
Brisbane Times 8 February 2016
Tony Moore
brisbanetimes.com.au senior reporter
Posted in Press Clippings
