Trump Inks Deal with Altus for Surfers Paradise Skyscraper

The Trump Organisation has inked a deal with Queensland housing estate developer Altus Property Group to deliver the first Trump-branded tower in Australia. 

The planned 91-storey Trump International Hotel and Tower Gold Coast would comprise 285 hotel rooms and 272 apartments, according to media reports.

A three-level podium and beach club are planned, as well as 3400sq m of retail and food and drink space.  

The beachfront site earmarked for the development was formerly home to the Iluka Beach Resort, a 20-storey, 1970s building demolished in 2013 due to concrete cancer.

Trump’s Trickett Street site

The 3 Trickett Street address was put on the market in 2024, a decade after plans for an 89-storey skyscraper were filed for the block. 

The 3494sq m site at Surfers Paradise last changed hands in 2019 when Forise Investment Australia sold it for $56.5 million to 3 Trickett Street Pty Ltd, according to Cotality’s RP Data.

Forise Investment Australia acquired the site from Vista Investments for $65 million, planning the 89-storey tower, which was approved in 2015.

Intending to complete the building by 2020, Forise spent about $40 million ensuring the basement levels would not be flooded with the construction of a 46m basement diaphragm wall, 59.5m of barette foundations and 40.5m of bored piles.

▲ The 3 Trickett Street site in Surfers Paradise is slated to become the home of Australia's first Trump tower.

But Forise’s parent company, the Fu Hua Group, ran into financial trouble in September 2018, and offloaded the site.

The entity that then acquired the site, 3 Trickett Street Pty Ltd, is associated in ASIC documents with a consortium from China that includes Macau casino boss Keung Kuong Loi and Gold Coast billionaire Ri Yu Li. 

Surfers Paradise-based builder-developer Altus cut its teeth on greenfield developments, launching housing estate projects in regional areas including two at Gracemere, 9km west of Rockhampton, and two at Moree in north-western NSW. 

Building the Trump Tower

The planned Trump tower at 91 storeys would become the highest building in Australia, dwarfing current record-holder the 73-storey Q1 building, also at Surfers Paradise. 

However, plans are in the works on the Gold Coast for a tower that would top the Trump plan.

Plans for the super-slender 101-storey One Park Lane at Southport, designed by BKK Architects, were submitted last year by a consortium led by Melbourne developer Tony Goss and development partner Baracon. 

▲ DBI Design's render for the Spirit Tower when it was proposed in 2015 by Forise Investments, part of the Fu Hua Group.

But whether the planned super-highrise towers get out of the ground is another matter.

Hutchinson Builders chairman Scott Hutchinson said last year that the realities of delivering a tower of 101 storeys in a high interest rate, high construction cost environment were prohibitive. 

“The developer will have to be very generous to the builder, or the builder will have to have big balls,” he said.