6-Star Off-Shore Hotel – for Perth?

Quick 6-star hotel rising out of the sea - Dubai's Burj al Arab - is currently the correct answer - but what about Yanchep's Rising Lotus may one day join it.

Never heard of Yanchep? To be fair most eastern state Australian's haven't either. Yanchep is on the northern fringe of Perth, some 50km north of Perth's CBD. Yanchep today is a sleepy pleasant suburb with an upmarket marina thanks to Alan Bond's exploits in the 1980's, but primarily known for the beautiful Yanchep National Park which combines spectacular caves, a pretty lake, and wildlife in abundance from kangaroos to koalas.

Yanchep National Park

So its the pretty obvious place  for Melvyn Braithwaite of Aquamarine Resource Management to develop a 6-star hotel, luxury apartments and leisure centre 600m off Yanchep. According to newspaper reports:

in a letter to Wanneroo mayor Jon Kelly, Mr Braithwaite said his company was prepared to spend more than $3 million on a feasibility study.

Apparently Mr Braithwaite is very serious about this design which will be a green construction called Rising Lotus because the flower inspired its design, would involve over 300 apartments - presumably not aimed at the first-home market?

Rising Lotus, Yanchep, Perth

Which is a shame because first home buyers are about the only one's who are buying in the current Perth market. The luxury end of the market is dead as a dodo. If agents can't move million dollar plus Cottesloe mansions for less than a 30% discount - why on earth would anyone want to buy 50km north? Let's face Wannerooo a little of Cottesloe's cache, and facilities, and proximity to the city and river. The two suburbs do share something in common though -they both have surf beaches. Even the Dubai engineers don't try building off-shore buildings on surf beaches! So I guess Mr Braithwaite is serious - but we are not waiting for the pre-sales any time soon!