Run to paradise: FNQ golf course to be transformed into residential estate with school and tourist park
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A NEW school, retirement village and tourist park for Cairns’ northern beaches are all being considered as part of a multimillion-dollar redevelopment plan for one of the Far North’s premier golf courses.
Golf will no longer be available at Paradise Palms from mid-June as resort managing director Darren Halpin prepares to lodge a development application with Cairns Regional Council to transform the Kewarra Beach 18-hole course into a new housing estate. The resort and clubhouse facility will remain open.
His company, PPNQ Developments, is working with Sydney-based city planning agency Urbis to produce a comprehensive master plan for the 113ha property.
They will be undertaking community engagement to provide an update on the draft plan prior to lodging the application, via stakeholder discussions, newsletters, and information sessions.
It is hoped construction on new residential lots will be able to start in 2020.
Mr Halpin said he was planning to provide new housing options for residents, emulating the “community feel” of Edge Hill.
“Hopefully, we’ll get a development application to convert it into a residential estate,” he said.
“We’re allocating a site for a school and a tourist park – a high-end tourist resort similar to the Cairns Coconut tourist resort.”
He said a retirement village was also under consideration, in addition to new walking tracks and green open spaces.
The clubhouse, which will be repurposed, is to be the only remnant of the property’s 30-year golfing history.
Mr Halpin, who was reluctant to put a total cost on the redevelopment, said he was trying to ensure better community use of the northern beaches asset.
“At the moment, only golfers use it, and there’s 150 members here, and maybe some visitors,” he said.
“That’s all they use: 100ha of land.
“Now there’s going to be thousands of people using it annually, with local people coming to use the facilities: people walking along new walking tracks up to the clubhouse, parks for families, activation areas for entertainment and activities.”
REFLECTING BACK
PARADISE Palms was the jewel in Japanese corporate giant Daikyo’s crown in the tropical north in its 1990s heyday.
It was bought by failed development company H & S Vision which was placed in receivership in August 2013, and then retrieved by PPNQ Developments two years later.
In 2017, outside parties considered a casino operation, hoping to pick up a lucrative regional gaming licence set aside for the Far North in the wake of the abandoned Aquis project at Yorkeys Knob. The interest came to nothing.
