Emporio Development Set to Start

REED Property Group’s Emporio residential development will start coming out of the ground at Sunshine Cove in late August, providing the first dwellings for a precinct that may ultimately house 9000 people.

Submissions to planning documents for the Maroochydore Principal Activity Centre, of which Emporio will form a part, close tomorrow afternoon, but it was the tough world economic conditions that had stalled the project, Reed Property Group chief Ken Reed said.

Now with more than 60% of the $250 million project’s first stage sold to a mix of resident and investor buyers, Mr Reed said he was confident a late August start would be achieved.

A sales office will open on site at the end of this month, shifting from the ground floor of Reed’s Duporth Avenue offices.

Mr Reed said there had been an encouraging level of local inquiry.

He said the timing of the project’s launch in late 2009 had been difficult because of world affairs.

Reed has yet to complete its response to the principal activity centre planning documents but Mr Reed said he was pleased there was now a document on which comment could be made.

He said the process had been slowed by amalgamation but there definitely was a need for a CBD structure plan.

“In relation to the pros and cons we are still reviewing it,” Mr Reed said.

Emporio’s first stage of 66 units will create more than 200 jobs in the hard-hit building sector.

Source:  Sunshine Coast Daily