Demolition on cards for Sanctuary Cove Country Club?

Could demolition be on the horizon for the iconic Country Club building that sits proudly upon a hill at the Sanctuary Cove resort?

It’s a prospect that might well have the resort’s colourful founder, Mike Gore, turning in his grave.

That prospect has arisen as the result of a deal that is likely to see resort owner Mulpha take 100% ownership of the two-level building.

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The $8 million deal is part of a solution to possible future financial troubles facing the resort’s private golf and country club.

Members of the club next month will vote on a proposal that includes selling an 81% stake in the Country Club to 19% holder Mulpha.

Sanctuary Cove Country Club could be demolished. Picture: Mike Batterham.

The golf club, if the deal is given the green light, will lease the space in the building from which it today runs the Palms golf course.

The lease comes with a redevelopment clause which, in effect, means that if Mulpha wants to demolish or reconfigure the Country Club, it has to give tenant the golf club at least a year’s notice.

A demolition costing has come in at $500,000.

Mulpha would chip in up to $2 million to provide a new Palms operation centre for the golf club.

The resort owner has indicated that any redevelopment of the Country Club building site could be at least five years away.

The Sanctuary Cove Country Club. Picture: Mike Batterham.

The 3200sqm building is on a 3ha site that includes five tennis courts, a 25-metre heated pool, and carparking.

It was built in the ’80s to five-star standard, an exclusive venue that came complete with a fine-dining restaurant.

Just what Mulpha might use the Country Club for is unclear but it may well link into plans by the listed Aveo group, in which Mulpha is the major shareholder, for a 163-unit retirement village on adjacent land.

Aveo, in 2014, paid Mulpha $15 million for the resort’s Recreation Club and the adjoining driving range.

Meanwhile, Mulpha won’t be getting just the Country Club out of the proposed ‘rescue’ deal with the golf and country club.

The Sanctuary Cove Country Club. Picture: Mike Batterham.

Its $8 million outlay, spread over three years, also includes three land parcels, totalling a little over a hectare.

A deal with Mulpha was first mooted last year after golf club members, who had been paying more than $6500 a year in fees, were told that by 2024 their club would be in financial distress.

An October proposal included Mulpha buying the Palms course but that idea was canned after Mulpha decided the course could not be run viably while golf club members had unlimited access to it.

The new proposal will see Mulpha’s 580 shares in Sanctuary Cove Golf and Country Club Holdings cancelled, leaving the club with around 840 members.

This article from the Gold Coast Bulletin first appeared as “Could prestigious Sanctuary Cove country club about to be demolished?”