Rich Listers sign up Marriott for $500m Gold Coast marina project

The Marina Mirage Gold Coast will include a restaurant, function and event spaces, a rooftop bar and pool, wellness and beauty centre, and day spa.

“It’s our first hotel, and we’re very excited about it,” Makris Group chief executive Jason Makris – the son of Rich Lister Con Makris – told The Australian Financial Review.

“It will bring significant benefit to our property portfolio, including enhancing revenue generation. It’s part of our strategy of owning lifestyle assets,” he said.

The hotel is part of the second stage development of the waterfront shopping mall, originally built by infamous developer Christopher Skase. The site was acquired by Makris Group for $52 million in 2013. The first stage – a 78-berth super yacht marina and ferry terminal – has already been completed.

The second stage includes the hotel, luxury apartments, restaurants and shops built over three levels, and incorporating redesigned sails (a standout feature of the current mall) on the roof. Makris Group has appointed Hutchinson as the builder. Construction is due to kick off next year.

The Makris family intends to retain ownership of the mixed-use development, after selling malls in Adelaide and focusing its energies on its Gold Coast projects, which include the Oracle Boulevard, a dining and commercial precinct at Broadbeach.

For Marriott, the Marina Mirage hotel will give it a fifth luxury property on the Gold Coast before the end of the decade.

It already operates two of the region’s top luxury hotels, the Sheraton Grand Mirage Resort being revamped by Rich Listers the Laundy and Karedis families, and the JW Marriott Resort & Spa at Surfers Paradise.

In the next few years, Marriott is due to open a 150-room Ritz-Carlton as part of the Marina’s Cove hospitality precinct being developed by Ross Pelligra and Dion Giannarelli as well as a St Regis Hotel as part of Rich Lister Tim Gurner’s $1.7 billion La Pelago multi-tower development at Budds Beach.

Marriott’s head of hotel development in Australia, Richard Crawford, said the wave of new hotel development at the northern end of the Gold Coast, was “collectively redefining” the popular leisure destination.

“The Gold Coast has been the best-performing hotel market during and coming out of COVID. The flight to luxury has been a genuine phenomenon,” Mr Crawford said.

This stellar performance, he said, had “proven the case” that room rates on the Gold Coast can be consistently higher than $300 a night. “That’s what gets the interest of developers – the demand is there.”

Also spurring on demand for luxury hotel rooms is a swath of luxury apartment developments, which are selling at record prices to local downsizers and interstate buyers.

Mr Crawford said the Luxury Collection brand, which allows developers and owners to decide on the look, feel and amenity offering of a property, was tailor-made for the Marina Mirage development.

“It allows passionate developers to create a unique identity with their own name, whilst benefiting from Marriott’s sales, marketing and loyalty offerings,” Mr Crawford said.