$2bn Boost For Tourism
Sydney Morning Herald
Friday June 16, 1995
Two major tourist developments with a combined value of $2 billion are moving from the drawing board to reality at the coastal township of Kingscliff in northern NSW.
The proposals have been on the back-burner for almost five years, harking back to Australia's tourism development boom in the late '80s.
Work on both projects is now expected to start this year, following a bid by Tourism NSW and Tweed Shire Council to boost the under-realised tourism potential of the Tweed Shire.
At the centre of both proposals is the tiny, former fishing village of Kingscliff, which has suffered a slow decline since its main industry - sandmining - was wound down in the '70s.
Tourism is expected to breathe new life into the area and promote the Tweed Shire as an eco-tourism hot spot.
Kings Forest is the larger of the two proposals, coupling a four-star hotel and seaside condominiums with close to 900 hectares of residential, commercial and retail development.
Construction costs alone are estimated at $1.7 billion, making Kings Forest one of the largest and most expensive self-contained tourist city developments undertaken in Australia.
A Japanese woodchip manufacturer, Narui Nohrin, is steering the development, which stretches north from Cudgen Lake to Kingscliff.
The property was acquired for $21 million in 1990, putting Narui on a long list of Japanese groups planning large community-style developments near Queensland's Gold Coast.
But Narui Nohrin is one of the few survivors of the boom - and subsequent bust - in Australia's tourism property market.
The company, which owns at least eight golf courses in Japan, has spent the past five years finetuning its plans, despite holding costs which are now estimated at close to $40 million.
Work will begin by October on the $168-million first stage, which incorporates an 18-hole championship golf course, a driving range, club house, corporate facilities and 418 golf-course lots, which will be progressively released over the next five years.
The project co-ordinator, Mr Tim Barr, said that a development control plan and a feasibility study had recently been completed for the project, which would be developed over the next 15 years to become a complete township with a town centre, schools, shopping centres, a 250-room beachfront resort hotel and 160 seaside condominiums.
Despite the magnitude of the development, there was a strong focus on environmental issues, Mr Barr said. A nursery was already in place and up to 10,000 eucalypt trees would be planted alongside wildlife corridors and wetlands.
Near Kings Forest, another major development is being taken out of mothballs by the Sahben Group of companies, which hopes to begin work late this year or early next year on a $175-million resort at Kingscliff South.
Plans for the resort, Kings Beach, were unveiled in 1989, but since then the project has been modified from a luxury, 400-room resort operated by Ritz-Carlton to a smaller, 300-room, four-star hotel offset by 260 condominiums and villas, a golf course, a country club and tennis courts.
A Sahben director, Mr Ben Smith, said that new partners were being brought into the project after several false starts, including a proposed equity arrangement with the US-based hotelier ITT Sheraton.
Negotiations were close to being finalised with new equity partners, paving the way for the project to proceed by early next year.
The Kingscliff proposals have been hailed as a major boon for tourism in the Tweed Shire.
The council's manager of business undertakings, Mr Richard Adams, says that the area is ideally placed to take advantage of Australia's "green tourism market".
But accommodation in the shire was restricted to caravan parks, guest houses and smaller motels, with the largest hotel incorporating just 60 rooms.
"What we're seeing is that there is now a degree of activity in smaller owner-operator developments rather than the large three-, four- or five-star developments," Mr Adams said.
He cited newly approved proposals such as that by English entertainer Max Bygraves to build 35 luxury tourist cabins and a pitch-and-putt golf course in the Tweed hinterlands.
"If we could get large-scale accommodation developments off the ground it really would make a difference, but the problem has been - and it's certainly not limited to Tweed - the proponents' ability to transform the plan on paper to bricks-and-mortar construction."
The council has already adopted an innovative approach to tourism.
Last year it helped to form TACTIC (Tweed and Coolangatta Tourism Inc), a tourism board which is paid a management fee by the council to promote the area both nationally and internationally.
Mr Adams believes that the Tweed Shire can package its area and Surfers Paradise as complementary destinations - Surfers providing the glitz and glamour and Tweed providing the natural attractions of World Heritagelisted national parks.
The same view is held by Tourism NSW, which recently offered a long-term leasehold interest in a 24-hectare beachfront site at Kingscliff, bordering Cugden Creek. The marketing campaign, through Colliers Jardine Hotel & Leisure, attracted seven expressions of interest and a tender campaign will follow soon, according to Tourism NSW's director of strategic planning, Mr Geoff Buckley.
Mr Buckley said that Tourism NSW was hoping to consolidate the area's position as a major tourism node, while maintaining the attraction of what was now a "beautifully undeveloped area".
"What we have to do is make sure we maintain that uniqueness, but what is lacking in the area is quality accommodation that would make it more than a day visit for people from the Gold Coast.
The shire, which already attracts more than 1 million tourists every year, had major growth potential, but investors were caught in a Catch-22 situation.
The opportunities were there, but there were no previous development success stories on which investors could judge the feasibility and viability of new developments.
© 1995 Sydney Morning Herald
