The Mayor of the Australia’s Gold Coast is planning to travel to the Middle East to drum up funding and get inspiration for his goal to build Dubai-style skyscrapers along the city’s famous coastline.
“The Middle East has produced world-renowned developments and we can learn a lot from them,” Mayor Tom Tate told the Courier Mail newspaper.
“We have always reached for the sky but now it’s time to reach for the stars. Iconic, breathtaking highrise developments are not just design statements, they’re the key to genuinely sustainable living,” he added.
Tate said many of the existing towers in the coastal city are “ageing and will soon need to make way for new developments.”
The mayor is planning to visit Qatar and Dubai in October to drum up funding for his vision to transform Australia’s sixth largest city.
As part of his plan to attract more foreign investment, Tate has already turned to one of the city’s biggest fans – the Sultan of Brunei.
Sultan Haji Hassanal Bolkiah, who is reportedly worth around $20bn, has owned a beachfront piece of land along the city’s Surfers Paradise for nearly 20 years. Tate has written to the wealthy royal offering to help him build a high rise tower on the site.
Local politicians are also overhauling the city’s planning scheme in a big to attract big investors and make development easier.
Dubai and the Gold Coast already have previous real estate links. UAE developer Enshaa and Australia’s Sunland Group entered into a joint venture to develop up to 13 Versace-branded properties around the world.
The first, the Palazzo Versace Gold Coast, opened in 2000 and the Palazzo Versace Dubai is currently under construction near Dubai Creek.
The two companies decided to disband their partnership in 2011, with Enshaa taking full control of the Dubai property, in return for handing its stake in the Gold Coast resort to Sunland.
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