Prolific Gold Coast apartment developer Raptis wants to reduce by 17 storeys its proposed Broadbeach residential tower.
In an application before Gold Coast City Council, the developer is asking to cut 55 apartments from the already approved, Koichi Takada-designed project.
Raptis won approval for 138 apartments in a 40-storey high-rise on the 1548-square-metre site at 6-8 George Avenue in December, 2021.
But in February this year, Raptis lodged a submission for minor changes to the 155.5m tower, telling the council it was no longer feasible to build to original plans due to “substantial” changes in building costs and the supply of materials.
Gold Coast deemed the now 23-storey project to be a “substantially different development”.
The new plans seek to decrease the number of apartments by 55 to 83. Forty of those, according to documents lodged by Zone Planning Group, will be two-bedroom, with another 42 of three bedrooms. A single four-bedroom apartment remains.
▲ The original plans (left) called for 40 storeys. Freshly lodged documents scaled the tower back by 17 levels (right).
With the original design’s upper levels gone, so too have sub-penthouse and penthouse apartments. A third basement level has disappeared, leading to 70 less carparking spaces.
The amended proposal also includes a revised internal tower floor plate, revised external tower facade and revised tower cap feature. The tower’s footprint and position within the rectangular site remains largely unchanged.
Seventy-six-year-old Jim Raptis—a designer and architect—arrived in Australia as a young boy with his Greek family. He began developing property in Sydney in 1967, before moving to the Gold Coast.
Today, he is joint managing director of Raptis with son Evan.