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National Australia Bank has provided funding for Palmera, a $1 billion, 52-level luxury residential tower being developed by Melbourne-based Central Equity on the Gold Coast as the project which has been 20 years in the making gets under way.
The funding arrangement underpins construction of the 347-apartment tower at Northcliffe on Garfield Terrace in Surfers Paradise, where Multiplex has been appointed as builder and is progressing construction on the 3,300sm Garfield Terrace site at Surfers Paradise.
Central Equity says the latest funding from NAB extends a decades-long association since the bank first backed the Melbourne developer in the late 1980s with a $36 million loan for one of the Victorian capital's earliest inner-city residential towers.
“When we commenced our first residential tower in the late 1980s the concept of funding off-the-plan apartments was still largely untested in Australia,” says Central Equity founder and chairman Eddie Kutner.
“NAB recognised the opportunity early and supported the project when others were uncertain. That relationship has now continued for more than 37 years across many developments.”
Central Equity, established in 1987, has delivered more than 85 residential developments with a combined end value exceeding $8 billion.
Palmera represents the company's largest single project and a significant commitment to its development debut in the Gold Coast market.
The Palmera site has a stop-start history stretching back nearly two decades.
Central Equity has owned the Garfield Terrace land since 2007, when it acquired the site with plans for a project called Luxe Private Residences that was ultimately killed by the global financial crisis. A subsequent 47-level proposal called The Luxe also failed to proceed.
In 2021 Central Equity lodged plans for Pacific One, a $500 million, 58-level tower with 389 apartments, but scrapped that project in July 2022 after construction cost blowouts made the development unviable at the time.
Palmera is now rising in its place, scaled to 52 levels but carrying a price tag double that of the abandoned Pacific One scheme, reflecting both the repositioning of the project toward the luxury end of the market and broader cost escalation across the construction sector.
Apartments in the project are currently priced from $3.5 million to $5.8 million.
Designed by Marchese Partners with interiors by DBI, Palmera has been conceived as a next-generation residential offering, featuring a collection of oversized apartments, with premium three-bedroom residences offering sweeping northern views stretching from Surfers Paradise through to Burleigh Heads.
Positioned in the tightly held Northcliffe precinct of Surfers Paradise, the tower is targeting buyers seeking a high-end coastal lifestyle, from downsizers to interstate investors.
Kutner says Central Equity has valued the ongoing support of the National Australia Bank for almost four decades of developments in Victoria, adding that the bank is playing an important part of Central Equity’s entry into the Gold Coast residential market.
When Central Equity was founded in the 1980s, Melbourne’s CBD and Southbank precinct was still dominated by warehouses and commercial buildings.
Fewer than 100 residents lived in Southbank at the time, and large-scale residential development in the inner city was not widely considered.
Since then, Central Equity has provided accommodation for about 40,000 residents across Melbourne’s CBD and Southbank.
It has also incorporated supporting infrastructure including essential lifestyle facilities like retail spaces, childcare facilities and neighbourhood activity centres.
Central Equity anticipates the Palmera development will be completed in mid to late 2029.
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