James Packer’s Crown Resorts and Chinese state-owned behemoth Greenland Holding Group are poised to announce they will combine their separate bids for the multi-billion-dollar Queens Wharf casino and tourism precinct in the Brisbane CBD.
If the rival bidders join forces it would bring the short list for the Queensland government’s riverfront site — about 10 per cent of the land in Brisbane’s CBD — down to two consortia led by competitors Crown and Echo Entertainment.
Greenland declined to comment yesterday and Crown had not responded to a request for comment by time of publication.
Greenland, a Fortune 500 company, has $1.4bn worth of apartment projects in Australia. Greenland Group’s President and Chairman Mr Zhang Yuliang, in Australia as part of the B20 Summit, told The Australian Greenland wanted more projects here and had no ceiling on local investment.
While the group — which had global revenue of nearly $55bn last year — was looking at new developments in Sydney, it was particularly interested in Brisbane and the Gold Coast, and in large-scale urban regeneration projects, Mr Zhang said.
The Queens Wharf concept will include a casino licence, several high-rises, a luxury hotel and public space spanning the northern bank of the Brisbane River. The site covers five city blocks of prime real estate along Alice Street to Queen Street, through George and William streets.
Two government buildings will be demolished to make way for the development.
The consortia of have been shifting and reforming since the Queensland government threw open bidding on what is one of the country’s largest city regeneration projects.
Greenland was previously in talks with casino operator Echo Entertainment, which runs Brisbane’s Treasury Casino, but Echo turned to two Hong Kong-based developers. In June Echo Entertainment, the Far East Consortium and Chow Tai Fook Enterprises joined forces creating the Destination Brisbane Consortium.
This story originally appeared in The Australian.