Pikos Group has launched its $200-million clifftop development, Skye by Pikos, in central Brisbane.
The 2300sq m site, at 8 River Terrace above the Kangaroo Point cliffs, was set to become a Banyan Tree residential community before Pikos Group bought it from the International Hotels Group.
Under its approved development application, Pikos will now deliver three “high-end” residential towers comprising 68 apartments.
The project, designed by Conrad Gargett who took over from Arkhefield, will include a floating 1000sq m sky deck inspired by Singapore’s Marina Bay Sands.
In this TUD+ Briefing, Pikos Group managing director Pedro Pikos discusses the research and partnerships that has allowed the developer to reposition the long-standing development site, the shifting buyer demographics and enquiry ahead of the project’s launch, and the new development scheme and vision.
“It’s often hard for developers to use statistics – [it is] often a broad brush attitude,” Pikos said.
“Kangaroo Point has some locations that have achieved some very heavy square metre rates and others that are incapable of achieving those square metre rates.
“Based on the disparity that we were seeing, especially in the high-end market, we approached Urbis and asked them to compare the top 20 locations in Sydney and Melbourne.
“We asked them to blend recent settlements together with a product that was currently selling in the market and analyse that data.
“What we wanted to look at was not just the settled sales, as the difficulty with settled sales in the apartment market is that sales that settled six months ago could have been sold two years ago – so the information you are looking at is actually quite old.”
“The disparity we found in relation to Brisbane, we thought, gave us an incredible opportunity.”
Pikos said the early demand and enquiry had allowed the project’s first tower to be brought forward with construction due to break ground by the end of September.
“The buyer profile and the type of investors that are emerging are changing at a very rapid rate,” Pikos said.
“The investors we see coming through now are looking at higher-end products and capitalise more on capital growth strategy rather than rental strategy.”
Pikos currently has a pipeline of $1.3 billion in development projects, with another council-approved $350-million Kangaroo Point project at 94-108 Lambert Street preparing for launch.
Article by The Urban Developer.
