Firm sells HomeTown site

Hamish Heard
Developers behind North Geelong’s ill-fated HomeTown proposal have sold the property to a Queensland buyer.
Quay Developments Corporation chairman and prominent Geelong businessman Frank Costa said his company sold the 15-hectare former Ford site for an undisclosed price last month.
Mr Costa would not reveal the buyer’s name but a source told the Independent that Queensland finance company City Pacific, also a property developer, was the new owner.
City Pacific already owned a 25 per cent stake in the project before the sale.
“(The buyer) said to me the plan was to just sit tight for a while and study what is happening in Geelong and work out what they think the best use for that land would be,” Mr Costa said.
The Independent revealed in July that directors of Quay Developments, including Mr Costa and members of Melbourne’s wealthy Smorgon family, had decided to pull the pin on the proposal for a 41,000-square-metre retail centre at a disused Ford factory off Melbourne road.
Mr Costa said in July that the failure of the project had cost Geelong 800 jobs.
HomeTown hit its first stumbling block when it emerged Mr Costa was part of a group of businessmen who funded the 2004 election campaigns of several sitting councillors.
Councillors who accepted the donations later voted in favour of HomeTown.
Controversy over the project grew after an independent planning panel’s report found Geelong’s council had ignored its own planning policies when amending City of Greater Geelong’s retail strategy to pave the way for HomeTown.
Harbour manager Toll Geelong Port had strongly objected to the project, saying it would hamper industrial development.
Geelong Chamber of Commerce executive director Lawrie Miller said he was aware the property had been on the market in the past few months.
“From my understanding, some of the partners felt that despite all the promises that had been made it was just taking too long to get anywhere with it,” Mr Miller said.
“They thought it was better to get rid of it.”
He predicted the new owners would have a hard time winning approval for any large-scale retail development.
“The way the zoning and rezoning goes with council, it will be some time before anything is allowed to proceed.”