CORA sets its finish line at 2025

THE proponents of the Cape Otway Road Australia (CORA) project have given their first public update about the next steps for the $350 million development since it received planning approval.

CORA co-founder Daryl Pelchen said the COVID-19 pandemic had the unexpected benefit of improving CORA’s appeal to the international market.

Victorian Planning Minister Richard Wynne approved the planning scheme amendment to enable CORA in October 2020, following public consultation and an independent panel review.

Mr Pelchen gave a presentation about the development, to be built on a 220-hectare site south of Lake Modewarre, at the Growing Winchelsea general meeting at Winchelsea’s Eastern Hub on March 10.

CORA will include luxury accommodation, a wellness centre, an elite sports training facility and sports science hub, art galleries, design studios, an eco-museum, a retail and hospitality precinct with a microbrewery, restaurants, a childcare centre, an organic farm and an outdoor event and sculpture park.

“This is a highly aspirational project, it’s much less ambitious now where we sit here today, we’re attracting bankable people behind this – some of them are the darlings of the Australian Stock Exchange – we believe this project is simply going to happen; that’s where we sit now,” Mr Pelchen said.

“It doesn’t mean it’s there until it’s there, but everything is in place to realise this as a 10/10 offering, not a 5/10 offering.”

He said the rest of 2021 would be taken up with further planning matters and landscape works (which are required to be carried out first).

The first package of construction, worth about $50 million, will take 12 months and “mobilise” the site, and allow the second package to be compressed into an 18-month period, followed by six months of fitout and three months of commissioning, with CORA to be operational by 2025.

“Effectively, we’ll be building all of these buildings at once. The idea is to minimise the disruption and the spend.”

Mr Pelchen said international audiences and sports teams loved “Brand Australia” for its sense of wellness and nature, and this had only increased in recent months.

“I’m not wanting to be political here at all, but COVID has elevated the Australian brand, together with New Zealand, beyond belief.

“The real opportunity for us as Australians is to be commercially intelligent, to actually see how we can best access the opportunity that COVID’s given.

“Everybody wants to be well, everybody sees Australia as a white knight in this space.”

He said there would be about 200 people around the world working on CORA right now “in some form or another”.

“What’s really important for everyone here to understand is that this project is to belong to this region, and to serve this region. That’s how it’s been conceived, and the people managing this project are absolutely committed to seeing that happen.”