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https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2026/feb/25/trump-tower-gold-coast-queensland-australia-glitter-strip>
"Five towers rise from the port of Rio de Janeiro, each 38 storeys high,
together the largest office complex in Brazil. A 47-storey glass monolith of
luxury residential condominiums and a casino soars above the Georgian Black Sea
resort town of Batumi. An ocean resort in Tijuana, Mexico looms over the
Pacific.
Separated by continents, two things unite these projects. One is the name
emblazoned upon their peaks like crowns: Trump. The other is the fact they were
never built, existing only in the archives of the internet as breathy press
releases and glossy renders.
Now another can be added to this list of imagined edifices: rising from the
white sands of Surfers Paradise, a new Trump Tower on Australia’s Gold Coast.
The news was splashed across media outlets and social media around the world on
Monday, with the announcement of a deal between the US president’s business
empire and a local property developer.
That developer, Altus Property Group’s David Young, has twice gone bankrupt.
The Altus website lists the previous development of just a handful of housing
projects in regional Australia. They seem a far cry from the $1.5bn tower Young
suggests will be the tallest in the country – a project he declares has had
“early works approved”, will begin construction by August, and be completed by
the end of the decade.
Gold Coast’s acting mayor, Mark Hammel, appeared to contradict the first of
those claims when he responded to questions about the proposal with a statement
saying that a “formal development application” would still be required for the
council to consider the resort.
So what of the second? Will Trump Tower break ground by August?
Those with longer memories might ask: will it be built at all?"
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
