Riverfront retirement village land on Wollaston Road sold

Coreless Management Group's Jason Coreless, who purchased the Wollaston Road land, also said the company was in the process of acquiring some other sites in Warrnambool.

Development plans for the Wollaston Road site allows for 192 fully detached homes in the retirement village as well as 52 housing lots and were approved by the council in December 2022.

The new owner said he was in the "early stages" of reviewing the plans but it might involve some changes.

"We are land developers. We're just in pre-planning. We are looking for the options now for conventional residential and possibly continuing with the potential retirement village," Mr Coreless said.

"We're going through assessing our options at the moment."

Mr Coreless said there would be some "modifications" to the approved plans.

"Generally in the same vein but we would make some adjustments to those," he said.

"We will test the appetite for a retirement village at this point."

Mr Coreless said he hoped to have the plans for the site finalised in the next six months.

The company is based in Geelong and Ocean Grove where its main residential housing developments over the past two decades have been Kingston Ocean Grove and Kingston Coast.

He said the other developments had included conventional residential, retirement village sites, commercial and industrial projects.

"From our perspective, we've chosen to come to Warrnambool. It fits our business criteria of being a growing and developing regional town," Mr Coreless said.

"We've looked at Warrnambool as a vibrant regional town with plenty of good growth opportunities, so that's why we're looking to and have invested in Warrnambool."

Mr Coreless said a bridge over the Merri River at Bromfield Street had been raised during talks with the city council.

The location has been earmarked for either a footbridge or car bridge, and allowed for in the approved plans for the site.

But a bridge for cars was something that was unlikely to be pushed up the council's priority list with flooding issues making it a costly project in excess of $10 million.

Original plans for the retirement village had included a small golf course but those plans were ditched.