Australia's Senior Citizens Clamour for High Rise Luxury
14th October, 2006
There was nothing unlucky about Friday 13th October 2006 for City Pacific.
The phones were running hot after glowing press coverage across the country reporting City Pacific's announcement to construct luxury residential towers for seniors in Australia and New Zealand.
The telephone lines were kept busy taking calls from enthusiastic people, who wanted to know when the first of the retirement resorts under subsidiary company Grande Pacific, would be completed.
"I am 85 and it has given me a reason to live," was one caller's response.
CEO & MD Phil Sullivan said, "We'll be rolling out these projects over many years on targeted sites ideally suited to the purchaser demographic."
Demographer Bernard Salt was quoted in The Australian (Friday 13/10/2006), saying demand for top quality retirement villages was being driven by the improving wealth of upper-middle Australia, especially following the past 16 years of "extraordinary prosperity".
"The frugal generation or people born in the 1930s is very wealthy," Mr Salt said. "They bought their houses for bugger all 30 or 40 years ago, they are very rich and have the ability to downsize into a high order accommodation." Mr Salt said the City Pacific model would likely be copied as more Australians entered old age. "The model will be replicated and eventually developed right throughout lifestyle precinct Australia over the next five to 10 years but its genesis rightly should come from the Gold Coast, the retirement heartland," he said.
The first planned construction will be a $70 million tower with 116 luxury apartments overlooking the Broadwater at Southport, Queensland.
Additional sites already secured include City Pacific subsidiary CP1's unique Martha Cove marina development on Victoria's Mornington Peninsular.
City Pacific has a 50% stake in Grande Pacific. The other 50% is held by Hallmount in association with New Zealand group Protac Investments.
