Public to get first peek at Maroochydore's new high-tech CBD

The project now has four commercial buildings either approved or under construction. They include the coast’s first hotel in decades, Pro-Invest’s Holiday Inn Express, as well as the first private commercial building on the coast to achieve a five-star NABERS energy rating, Foundation Place.

Construction has begun on Evans Long’s eight-level sustainable office building, with 40 per cent of its 5000 square metres of space already pre-committed by tenants.

Set on about 50 hectares, the new CBD is expected to create 15,000 permanent jobs on the Sunshine Coast as well as inject billions of dollars into the economy over the next two decades.

“This is all about opportunities for employment and career progression on the coast and that’s really important for the community to see and better understand,” SunCentral Maroochydore CEO John Knaggs said.

“I think People’s Day helps people see the potential of the site and where it may go.”

Commercial Real Estate got to walk through the streets of the project with Mr Knaggs in the lead-up to the weekend festivities – which will include music, art and kids’ activities – and it was surprising that such a game-changing development seemed so compact and community-focused.

“It’s deliberately designed as a walkable city. It’s a city-street network for people,” Mr Knaggs said.

“There are very generous footpaths in every street and, again, that’s a deliberate design intent to allow the site, the future city, and the bones that we have been creating to add a lot of a flesh that’s about people, social engagement, business, and employment, essentially.”

Mr Knaggs said the city’s new under-sea broadband cable would give it the fastest internet connection to Asia of any city on the east coast, as well as supercharge the data connectivity to Sydney.

He said the high-speed cable was drawing interest from businesses nationally and internationally that understood its importance for future economic success.

“This project, while it might seem about city-making, it’s more importantly about job creation for future generations, so every single one of these lots in these great streets that we have built, and are continuing to build, need to house great enterprises and businesses on them,” Mr Knaggs said.

“There is no reason, whatsoever, that we can’t foresee, down the track, a major technology entity setting up here and starting to trade in that digital economy.

“For us, as locals, that’s incredibly important because therein lies the jobs pipeline for our young people.”