Winning hand: Sizzling Coast market helps Star sell-out two towers, 879 apartments
The first residents who will live, as well as play, at The Star Casino on the Gold Coast are preparing to move in with all 422 apartments in the upper levels of The Star’s new $178m hotel and apartments tower sold out.
The Star Gold Coast casino.
All apartments in the second $400m tower under construction and due for completion in 2024 have also sold, which means all 879 residential apartments across both towers have sold out in the scorching hot Gold Coast property market.
It is the first time that people are able to lay their money down to live at the casino.
The residential influx ushers in a new era of high-rolling in-casino living in Queensland, with the Gold Coast and Brisbane upping the ante on luxury integrated resort lifestyle offerings.
The sell-out also signals some good news for The Star amid damning ongoing compliance hearings surrounding The Star’s casino operations and an exodus of The Star Entertainment Group senior executives.
The luxury residential apartments join the startling upsurge of hotel rooms in the rapidly-developing tower builds on the Gold Coast casino’s Broadbeach island.
As well as residences, the new builds also bring around 900 apartments to the short-term holiday rental pool. Combined, the four towers on the island also mean The Star precinct will offer nearly 1200 hotel rooms and suites.
Destination Gold Coast Consortium Project Director Jaime Cali said The Star sales had seen “record growth and resiliency, despite the pandemic” among cashed-up downsizers and investors.
“Investors were out in force over the past summer with 80 per cent of the purchasers in the second tower being locals looking for a second investment,” Cali said.
“Remote and decentralised working arrangements as a result of the pandemic have seen investors attracted to a lifestyle where they have the convenience of dining and other facilities right on their doorstep.”
With the flurry of tower construction, the casino location is almost unrecognisable compared to a few short years ago.
Two new towers sit alongside the existing The Star Grand hotel and The Darling hotel.
The 53-storey Dorsett hotel is joined by the new $400 million 63-storey tower, which is as yet unnamed.
Under a $2 billion expanded masterplan, approved by the Queensland Government in November 2018, The Star could move to construct yet another three hotel towers to complement the current four.
The masterplan is being overseen by Destination Gold Coast Consortium—the joint venture between The Star, Chow Tai Fook Enterprises, and Far East Consortium.
The joint venture is also developing the $3.6 billion Queen’s Wharf Brisbane precinct.