- The island has perpetual leasehold and four long-term leases across 136 hectares of land
- The island is about 15 kilometres from Hamilton Island
- Comes amid a flurry of similar islands sold in the past year
Lindeman Island, previously the home of Club Med, has been listed for sale.
Owned by China-based White Horse, the listing provides investors with a potential opportunity to build a new resort in the World Heritage-listed Great Barrier Reef.
Wayne Bunz and Hayley Manvell of CBRE Hotels have been appointed to market the asset, which is one of 24 Queensland islands offering resort approvals.
The island has a perpetual leasehold and four long-term leases across 136 hectares of land, including the closed beachfront resort, golf course and air strip. Additionally, the island is home to 637 hectares of a national park area with seven private beaches.
Located within the Whitsunday archipelago, Lindeman is about 15 kilometres from Hamilton Island, and can be accessed by a 20-minute boat ride. Small charter aircraft and helicopters can land on the island’s airstrip.
“The Whitsunday Region has been one of the most resilient markets through the pandemic and was recently recognised as the world’s second most loved tourist destination in 2022 by the Tourism Sentiment Index, highlighting the region’s robust tourist market,” said Mr Bunz.
“Lindeman Island provides investors with the opportunity to redevelop the asset in line with other nearby successful luxury resorts, such as qualia Hamilton Island, to capitalise on strong domestic tourism demand and a resurgence in the international inbound market.”
Wayne Bunz, CBRE
The island’s masterplan includes a range of four to six-star accommodation offerings, with 325 suites, villas, apartments, an ecotourism education centre, bars, restaurants, beach club, nightclub, conference, recreation and a staff village.
“The asset is essentially a blank canvas for an incoming investor, allowing them to follow the masterplan developed by the existing owner White Horse Group or undertake a smaller scale luxury redevelopment,” added Ms Manvell.
Michael Dawn, the local representative of White Horse, said it hopes the new owner of the island continues with its vision to redevelop the island resort.
“It is with regret that after ten years of ownership, White Horse has made the decision to divest Lindeman Island, despite having successfully completed the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) component of the redevelopment,” he said.
The listing comes amid a string of recent island sales, with five major islands returning to the hands of Australian investors over the past year.
These include:
- Dunk Island to Annie Cannon-Brookes, wife of Atlassian co-founder Mike Cannon-Brookes
- Lizard Island to Tattarang
- Long Island to Oscars Hotels
- Hook Island to Meridian Australia
- Elysian Retreat Long Island to Shayne Smyth, founder of Perle Ventures and travel insurance group Cover-More.
Queensland was also recently crowned the Nation’s Tourism Capital, with the state outperforming the national average and all other states for overnight visitor expenditure.
In March 2022, this was recorded at a level 45.2% or $896 million higher than March 2019.
International expressions of interest close 25 August.
