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'Indian' behind Australia's largest real estate project

Paritosh Parasher in Sydney

The man behind Australia's biggest ever property development project is a soft-spoken business magnate who loves to be called Indo-Australian, even though he is a Sri Lankan Tamil.

Meet media shy Maha Sinnathamby, who is backing the new central business district in Brisbane -- complete with a gigantic residential and commercial development complex -- that will come by 2002, just 20 km from the current CBD.

Sinnathamby is the managing director of Springfield Land Corporation, the company responsible for this project. Springfield, as the new city is called, is likely to cost Australian $2 billion when fully completed in a decade.

A Sri Lankan who came to Australia in 1962 from his country of birth Malaysia, Sinnathamby graduated in civil engineering from University of New South Wales in 1965.

He worked for different organisations as civil and design engineer before establishing his own company in Perth, Western Australia, in 1976.

In spite of coming to Australia four decades ago, Sinnathamby continues to maintain close contact with the country of his forefathers, India. Every year he makes a trip to Sri Lanka or India.

"I like to classify as an Indo-Australian. Whether the Indian community like that or not is a different story," he said.

Even though Australia is a land of vast spaces, there has not been much property development in this country that could even come close to the dimensions being mapped by Springfield Land Corporation.

Set on 2,850 hectares, more than 14,000 homes will be developed to accommodate an estimated population of 60,000. Natural beauty of the Springfield location has also been appreciated by a number of property development professionals and commentators.

"Springfield has the natural beauty already in place -- we are adding the built-form to complement this natural beauty," Sinnathamby said.

Australia is also blessed with rich sporting traditions and has produced a number of champions in almost every disciplines.

"An 18-hole golf course being developed by Greg Norman's company, Great White Shark Enterprises, would be easily among the 10 best Australian golf facilities," says Sinnathamby.

"Brookwater Championship Golf Course Community, the name of the estate being developed by Norman, is a unique concept as more than 50 per cent of the residential lots would have golf frontage or enjoy parkland views," he says.

The Brookwater community contains 851 residential lots over a 232-hectare area. The project began in January 2000 and is slated to contain a hotel and medium density site as well. Beside Greg Norman and Springfield, AMP Golf Holdings is also involved in this project that is likely to finish in 2002.

The project is attracting rave previews and was recently featured on the prime national current affairs program Sixty Minutes, produced by the Channel Nine network.

Springfield has engaged another big name in Australian real estate development, Macquarie Property, for the concept, design and even financing of the 320-hectare town center for the new city.

"Our town center would be bigger than the Brisbane CBD and would be close to the size of the Sydney center and world class master planners Skidmore Owings and Merrill LLP have been developing it for us," said Sinnathamby.

Indo-Asian News Service

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