Varsity, Excellance gets rewarded, Coast duo lauded by UDIA for excellence

Two commercial buildings, at Robina and Varsity Lakes, were judged among Queensland’s best at the development industry’s excellence awards last week.

The classy hi-tech duo, HQ@Robina and Silver@The Exchange, were two of the three finalists in their category at the 2006 Urban Development Institute of Australia Suncorp Queensland Awards for Excellence.

The winner of the category, Retail commercial Large-over 3000sqm, was Mirvac’s 189 Grey Street project in Brisbane. It will now be among state and territory finalists vying for the category’s best building in Australia award.

Completed in March HQ@Robina is a $22 million project by Robina Projects Australia in association with Robina Land Corporation.

The 4506sqm six storey building has 37 suites and two levels of basement parking, which set an industry bench mark ratio of one vehicle space for every 21sqm of floor space.

The building, which all but sold out ahead of completion, is home to accountants, financial services providers, property agents and healthcare services providers including general medical, ophthalmology, medical imaging and dentistry practices.

Robina Projects Australia general manager Hylton Slater said the fact that the building was selected among the finalists for the award was high praise not only for its developers, but also for its architects, Atelier Group.

HQ @ Robina was designed to be a core component of Robina’s live. learn, work and play master plan and the fact that it was chosen as an award finalist confirms the high level of innovations and the standards of excellence that the building has achieved, he said.

“The fact that suites in the building achieved an industry leading price pf $6000 a square metre further confirms that we have created something ultra special.

“HQat Robina is an important step in accelerating Robina’s transformation into a new, vibrant and sophisticated commercial heart for the Gold Coast with world class facilities.”

At Varsity Central, Silver @ The Exchange was developed by Bruce Barclay’s BRB Group and completed in 2005.

The $24 million ‘future proof’ building. Designed by Alan Griffith Architect, has 6000sqm of space over four levels and tenants include IBM, the BRB Group and financial services companies.

Mr Barclay said the UDIA’s recognition of the project highlighted the importance of innovation, holistic design and advanced information an communications technology in shaping tomorrow’s business and lifestyle communities.

He said that, with Silver @ The Exchange, BRB has demonstrated an understanding of the changing nature of work place environments.

“We are delighted to be recognized in the prestigious UDIA awards. It is a credit to the entire project team.” He said.

“It reinforces our commitment to innovation and forward thinking, confirms the quality achieved in Silver @ The Exchange, and inspires the development community to keep striving to raise the bar.”