11 Storeys of 76, 2 & 3 bed, 2 bath units in the Maroochydore CBD with   fronting a seasonal creek parkland and next door to a new Village Centre

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When reading marketing material for residential projects you will no doubt have or will see a complex where you can; Live, Work and Play! Now while we certainly were not the first to come up with this phrase we pioneered its use here on the Sunshine Coast with a very timely and extremely catchy marketing campaign using a combination of TV, Radio and print media. We successfully timed and tapped into the convergence of the growing up of the Sunshine Coast into a coastal region of critical mass chasing sophistication. This combined with the prevailing metro sexual trend plus a post GST boom before we knew what a GFC was, saw project success beyond our wildest hopes. On release night in a careful and strategic marketing campaign we ‘’sold’’ 70 of the 76 units in the project (1 other was a large 1,200m2 retail/commercial lot that was pushed aside for the Chairman). We managed to finally get 65 of these sales fully signed up for an amazing launch. 

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By marketing the Maroochydore CBD as a cosmopolitan hub in the design, we activated the previously unappreciated waterside of Cornmeal Creek, complemented by a 120-metre waterside boardwalk – inspired by our visit to the Melbourne Docklands precinct. Deliberately designed with cutting edge architecture and vital lifestyle elements in mind, the complex includes ground floor café retail, a recreation room, podium level lap pool and landscaped barbecue facilities with water views for most occupants of the 77 apartments.

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The introduction of the GST in Australia spurred the market, and while there were other factors at play in a global economic cycle, this event signaled the go point, though I’m not sure many of us knew it at the time. It ran hard and fast in our region, until Melbourne Cup day 2003 when the RBA put interest rates up by just .25% and then the same again in December. Looking to stall the economy from exceeding its inflation targets the RBA wanted to slow the party and it worked. 

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From our view, this second increase in two months spooked the buyers which brought our new property sales grinding to a halt. While sales trickled in from that point on until the GFC, the party had certainly stopped on sales volume and hence price growth and the mass creation of new homes. We took 2 more years to sell the remaining 10 apartments as we completed construction. 

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The project profit was just on $10 million which for a $61 Million project was pretty solid with that market finish and subsequently won a number of Housing and Construction awards the Sunshine Coast Master Builders Association 2006 Housing and Construction Award for Residential Building (over 3 storeys) $10 to $50 million heralding ‘’the m1 mixed use project has created a benchmark for future developments within the Maroochydore Urban Renewal Precinct.’’ But alone with Aurora, Platinum, Oceans and Riva it was one of the first projects to shape the Maroochydore CBD future outlook of residential projects looking to frame a cosmopolitan Maroochydore CBD lifestyle by combining views, recreation, shopping, dining and living in high density living.