First look: BPG eyes Newstead apartments on Maud Street
Just a month after lodging plans for a new apartment development in Palm Beach on the Gold Coast, BPG—led by Glen Williams and Nick Parr—is now looking to build in Newstead.
The team is planning an 18-level tower at 16-22 Maud Street, a 2,428 sqm site that Williams told Urban they had been working on securing for some time.
On the decision to double down in two of South East Queensland's most sought-after suburbs, Williams said the reasons are straightforward.
"None of the key drivers have changed," Williams told Urban.
"There's still a shortage of stock. Very few new apartments are getting built. Unless you're a builder-developer right now, making the numbers work for a new development is extremely difficult due to high construction costs and the availability, and cost, of builders."
The new tower, designed by Plus Architecture, will have 131 two and three-bedroom apartments, plus a wellness-focused rooftop with a gym, sauna, steam room, hot and cold plunge pools, a yoga lawn, communal barbecues, and shaded lounging terraces.
On the ground, a landscaped garden lobby with street-facing seating will link to a retail tenancy and corner plaza, encouraging street-level vibrancy and creating a new social node for Maud Street.
The design inspiration for the new building came from the heritage-listed former Goldsworthy and Perkins Boot Factory, located next door.
"The design pays homage to the suburb’s industrial history and responds to its context by referencing those iconic archways and tactile brick materiality," Plus Architecture noted in the planning application.
The old boot factory is owned by Super Amart billionaire John Van Lieshout’s development company, Unison Projects. They’re planning 45 apartments across a 12-level tower, with the former boot factory—a two-level brick building dating back to the late 1880s—set for partial demolition.
Last month, BPG filed plans for a new 71-apartment building in Palm Beach—a return to Palmie for the developer, who completed Sable on Palm Beach, just a few doors down from the new site, in 2019.
Read more: First look: BPG Developments returns to Palm Beach new apartment market
