Marilynne Paspaley abandons plans for Rottnest Island resort Pinctada

Marilynne Paspaley's much-anticipated $70 million luxury Pinctada resort development on WA’s Rottnest Island won’t be proceeding.

The former actress and Pearling family scion has abandoned plans for a resort on the island because of too many “constraints”.

She says outdated bureaucratic processes killed off her vision for the resort.

In June WA Tourism Minister Kim Hames told a parliamentary estimates hearing that Pinctada’s inability to raise finance for the project had thrown it into “limbo”. Paspaley denied this, claiming the time frames imposed were not realistic.

Last year the WA government named Pinctada as preferred developer and its plan would provide the island its first new accommodation since the 1980s.

Paspaley is among the few developers to successfully build hotels in WA in the past 20 years, including Pinctada Cable Beach in Broome, for which she became a registered builder. She also holds The Kimberley Grande and McAlpine House in Broome.

However, the rigid processes in place through the Rottnest Island Act proved too much for the developer, who claims that her plans would not have been commercially viable.

She says she has spent millions of dollars trying to minimise the obstacles associated with her plan for a 120-room resort and spas overlooking Longreach Bay on a site that is the island’s degraded former rainwater catchment.

This is the second attempt to find a developer for the site. In 2009 a consortium led by Broadwater Hotels and Resorts collapsed after two years of negotiations.

The search to find a suitable developer will continue and Karma Resort’s founder John Spence, who is also a Commissioner for WA Tourism, is likely to cast another bid for the pleasure to develop the property.