Tower Plans Piling Up Again Along Broadbeach Strip

A Sydney developer whose debut Gold Coast high-rise is to be crowned with a sprawling penthouse touted to set a new record price on the city’s skyline has filed plans for a second Broadbeach tower.

DVB Projects, led by Dean Brown, is seeking to add a 32-storey residential highrise to its Glitter Strip pipeline.

It is earmarked for a 1156sq m site at 137 Old Burleigh Road, down the Broadbeach strip from its approved but yet-to-be-built 26-storey luxury Sea Glass tower project.

The developer has again tapped architects Rothelowman to design the scheme, which comprises 39 apartments rising from a two-level basement, ground-floor lobby and five-level podium.

Topping the podium is a communal recreational area spanning 474sq m across level 6, including a 20m infinity pool, magnesium hot and cold plunge pools, gym, sauna, steam room, barbecue facilities and dining spaces.

The apartments will be spread across levels 7 to 31, providing a mix of 30 three-bedroom half-floor units, 8 full-floor four-bedroom residences and a double-storey penthouse, including a private rooftop wellness and entertaining terrace with a pool.

The basement and podium levels will accommodate 93 carparking spaces.

If approved, the proposal would replace a 1980s walk-up brick block of 12 units.  

A submitted architectural statement said the proposed development one block from the beach “seeks to exemplify and manifest a local architecture that expresses the location”.

“The neighbourhood of Broadbeach projects a lifestyle of casual, social engagement and invitation; animated streets where life is on display,” it said.

“To ensure this preservation of character, the proposal seeks to engender a place which participates in these traditions and contributes to the evolution of local identity.

“Imagined as a collection of beachside homes, the dwellings take form as a series of quarters for living and sleeping, each shaped by a series of directional vistas running across and through the space.”

DVB Projects’ Sea Glass tower—its first foray into the Gold Coast market—is earmarked for a 1186sq m site about a kilometre up the road at the corner of Old Burleigh Road and First Avenue.

It will comprise 35 half and full-floor apartments as well as a three-level, 1450sq m penthouse.

At the time it lodged the development application, in February 2021, DVB head of development Joel Brown said he believed the Sea Glass penthouse “soundly will top the record for a Gold Coast penthouse”.

The proposal was finally given the green light two years later following a drawn out legal stoush in the Planning and Environment Court with the Gold Coast City Council, which initially knocked back the development application based on concerns over the tower’s height and shadowing issues.

Meanwhile, new plans for another Old Burleigh Road high-rise site have been filed by Melbourne developer Little Projects.

It has gone back to the drawing board after its original application to develop a 37-storey tower—comprising 32 whole-floor three-bedroom apartments and one four-bedroom penthouse—was refused in January, 2023.

▲ Renders of the new plans for 118 Old Burleigh Road, Broadbeach.

According to the planning documents, a notice of appeal was lodged soon after with the Planning and Environment Court.

But since then the developer and council had been in “productive mediation” resulting in “an agreed position” that required the filing of a new DA.

The revised scheme for the 690sq m corner site at 118 Old Burleigh Road has been designed by Plus Architecture.

It is for a slender 23-storey tower comprising 21 four-bedroom, three-bathroom apartments, including a penthouse with a private rooftop pool deck and terrace with a fire pit, outdoor kitchen and dining area.

A communal recreational area on level 1 will provide a gym, residents’ work-from-home office space, a pool, deck area with cabanas, sauna, outdoor shower, barbecue facilities and dining space.

Three basement levels accessed via Australia Avenue will accommodate parking spaces for 43 cars.

Prolific Gold Coast developer Barry Morris also is plotting to squeeze another apartment tower into his favoured beachside stomping ground.

The proposed development, if approved, would be Morris Property Group’s 10th highrise residential project at Broadbeach.

The slender 25-storey tower design comprises 22 full-floor, three-bedroom apartments and a single two-bedroom unit, capped by a rooftop recreational deck. It is earmarked for a 607sq m site at 14 Chelsea Avenue, occupied by a 1970s three-storey brick block of six units.

▲ Render of Morris Property Group's proposed slender 25-storey tower at 14 Chelsea Avenue, Broadbeach.

As well, at nearby 122 Surf Parade, Sydney rich-lister Ian Malouf and developer Peter Wilding have taken the wraps off the completed $256-million, 30-level Remi Residences, comprising 49 two, three and four-bedroom apartments.

It also is topped with a multi-storey penthouse, spanning 1200sq m across three levels and featuring a rooftop pool and recreational area.

The project has been launched to the market fully completed without its apartments being offered for pre-sale—a rarity in a market that generally sells off the plan.