The Gold Coast mayor, Tom Tate, has made a $15m profit on paper after selling a Surfers Paradise hotel he promised to unload three years ago when he entered politics.
Tate has reportedly sold the Islander hotel, a popular venue among revellers at the annual “Schoolies” festival in the heart of the city’s party precinct, for $26.5m.
A search of property records shows the Islander surged in value in Tate’s hands over the past four years.
His family company acquired the Surfers Paradise Boulevard property from his father, Warwick, for $11.3m in 2011.
The buyer, according to a Gold Coast Bulletin report, is the Brisbane nightclub maven Lou Bickle. Bickle previously spent upwards of $15m turning an empty parking lot in Fortitude Valley into one of Queensland’s most expensive nightspots, Cloudland.
The spectacular rise in the Islander’s value is a marked contrast with the nearly two decades during which Tate’s father held it.
Warwick Tate bought the property in 1992 for $9.2m, meaning a gain of a mere $2.1m when he sold to his son 19 years later.
Tate the younger told the Gold Coast Bulletin he had taken over the running of the hotel in 1993. He promised to sell it during his successful run for mayor in 2012.
Gold Coast council records show one of Bickle’s companies applied in June to add 356 beds for hostel accommodation.
