Apartment development still not all that fashionable for Alex Perry

Designing a fashionable evening gown for Miranda Kerr or Megan Gale is one thing, developing apartments that appeal to off-the-plan investors is another as Alex Perry has found out.

Two years after launching Alex Perry Residential in Fortitude Valley complete with models, champagne and canapés, the 11 level apartment block planned for 959 Ann Street has yet to proceed to construction.

And ambitious plans for nine Alex Perry-inspired apartments to be rolled out across Australia by 2021 haven't eventuated.

When first launched in mid-2011 with the fanfare attached to the fashion designer, construction of Alex Perry Residential was pencilled for January 2012, but was then put back to the end of 2012 following a re-design.

The redesign pulled out the expensive three-bedroom apartments and replaced them with one-bedroom apartments as part of a proposal that would to turn 77 out of the 143 apartments into serviced apartments. The website now lists a 2014 estimated completion date.

Construction is now set to begin in the final quarter of 2013, but subject to enough sales being achieved to satisfy the financiers of the development.

A December 2012 report on the project said one-bedroom apartments started from $350,000 and two-bedroom apartments starting from $513,000, ranging in size from 47 square metres to 81 square metres with a guaranteed rental return of 7%.

Developer Chrome Property did not provide a sales update to Colliers International for its March quarter inner Brisbane apartment report.

Colliers records just 40 apartments have been sold off-the-plan out of 143 in the $75 million project.

The top Fortitude Valley seller over the quarter was David Devine’s Central Village with 67 off-the-plan sales over the March quarter for Cambridge Towers, the first stage of the $450 million development, currently under construction.

Rod Fiddler, managing director of Xede Property Development Services, the project director of Alex Perry Residential, told Property Observer, they are “not in the business of publicly declaring sales results as these are too often manipulated or misinterpreted”.

Fiddler says the project has received development approval with a builder appointed.

“Sales are continuing and we are progressing towards financiers’ pre-sales targets."

He says construction is targeted to commence “this side of Christmas with demolition as early as September 2013."

Alex Perry’s involvement in real estate development dates back to 2008 when he lent his design expertise to the interiors of the doomed nine-apartment project at 10 Wylde Street, Potts Point, developed by Ashington, which collapsed in 2010.

The project’s promotion was originally handled by public relations firm Baker Brand, which says it is no longer involved in the project.