8 Storey School on Hope Island!!!

[KJBrissy]

High-rise high school

By Greg Stolz
September 22, 2007 12:00am
AUSTRALIA'S first highrise school is to be built . . . where else but on the Gold Coast?

The eight-level private school will be created as part of a $2.5 billion community being developed by a former bottle shop attendant and university drop-out who drives a yellow Ferrari.

Developer John Fish, an Ipswich-born self-made millionaire, will today launch his Marina Quays project at Hope Island on the Gold Coast's booming "north shore".

Dubbed a mini-city, the 10-year development will be one of Queensland's largest master-planned communities and will eventually house 11,000.

It will be the last piece in the Hope Island development jigsaw that began with the creation of Sanctuary Cove 20 years ago by entrepreneur Mike Gore.

Ironically, Mr Fish was in partnership with Gore's son, Craig, in motor sports and wine businesses. But the two recently had an acrimonious split and Mr Gore is undertaking rival projects at Hope Island, where $8 billion of development is under way.

Mr Fish, who began buying and developing property on Hope Island in 1997, acquired the 100ha Marina Quays site five years ago. He said Hope Island was a playground for the rich and famous, but unlike the neighbouring Sanctuary Cove and Hope Island Resort, Marina Quays would not be a gated community and average people could afford to live there.

"We'll have bedsitter apartments starting from $240,000, all the way up to $2 million, three-level waterfront homes," he said.

Mr Fish said Marina Quays would have a heavy emphasis on environmental sustainability, with all homes made from solid concrete and equipped with 10,000-litre rainwater tanks.

He said the vertical school – part of a commercial precinct that will include a private hospital, shops and offices – was in line with higher densities specified in the Southeast Queensland Regional Plan to curb urban sprawl.