Alkimos Beach

Project: Alkimos Beach Project

Client: DevelopmentWA and Lendlease 

Background: Prior to the establishment of her business, Development Director, Felicia Brady was also the project lead on Alkimos Beach when employed by Lendlease; arguably one of Australia’s most recognised, successful and sustainable greenfields residential developments.

With a project value of over $1bn, Alkimos Beach comprised over 500ha developable land including three large development precincts, a city centre and rail station.

The project was developed under a ‘Development Management Agreement’ between Lendlease and WA’s State Government Development Agency, LandCorp (now DevelopmentWA).

Having been involved in the project from inception and remaining as a project lead for nearly six (6) years on varying components, Felicia formed part of the team who developed and delivered the project plan, strategy, marketing and branding for the project.

Deliverables: During Felicia’s time on the project, she delivered, sold and settled over 1200 residential medium density lots varying in size from 125m2 – 375m2 as well as delivered medium density built-form product in partnership with key partner builders.

The project was pioneering in its approach to sustainability ensuring the early delivery of social and community services and infrastructure and Australia’s first community sized energy storage battery system, securing Australia’s first 6-Star GreenStar certification for a community development and 6-leaf EnviroDevelopment rating.

Leading a team of 15 staff (including development managers, marketing and sales executives, finance managers and sustainability experts) directly employed by Lendlease on the Alkimos Beach project, and directly managing up to eight (8) staff at any given time, Felicia led, developed and grew her team to create a high-performance environment with limited staff turnover.

Felicia worked closely with project partner, LandCorp (now DevelopmentWA) facilitating and leading regular project meetings and regularly preparing and presenting board papers to the LandCorp/Lendlease board with success.

Felicia led the preparation of financial modelling through the State Finance Manager and managed change in market conditions through strategising and managing discounted cash flow models.

Felicia was also responsible for managing all sales and marketing initiatives, with a hands-on role in the development of all sales, marketing and builder relation strategies, brand development and development and approval of all sales and marketing collateral.

The balance between achieving both project partners commercial objectives and imperatives and meeting project KPIs and hurdles required tenacity and strategic thinking. With the Project KPIs and sub-objectives totalling 243 social, community, environmental and economic based minimum targets, all subject to annual auditing, Felicia ensured all were met, if not exceeded during her time leading the project.

Relationship management with DevelopmentWA, the project partner, and key builder groups was also a significant part of Felicia’s role as project lead and involved close management which, at times, became strained between the project partners for varying reasons. During these times, and where both parties believed they had differing objectives on specific matters, Felicia worked tirelessly to bring both parties together to develop a relationship that became positive, collaborative and enduring.

With the project’s foundations having been built on innovation, it was important to understand the impact (both social, environmental and financial) on all decision-making, with Felicia procuring key pieces of work to further understand the impacts of the implementation of innovative advances and early delivery of community-based infrastructure on the project’s financial successes. This exercise resulted in the project partners identifying where uplifts in project profit could be directly correlated to changes in the project’s delivery strategy and implementation of innovative advances or solutions.

Felicia also facilitated a major change to Alkimos Beach’s delivery strategy by providing direct evidence on the financial and social impact that sloping lots were having to the development’s profitability and consumer’s level of satisfaction. Through providing insight, detailed explanation and development solutions over a period of a year, Felicia was able to provide comfort to the project board that the change was critically required to improve its market share, commercial returns and stakeholder satisfaction.

Felicia’s drive to introduce innovation and where necessary apply her problem-solving skills ensured the early delivery of significant community infrastructure and sustainability initiatives and innovative retail centre facilitated a change in the project’s market share from 11% to 24%. This was a significant uplift, particularly in light of the number of projects operating in the north-west corridor of Perth (upwards of 10 large-scale projects).

Alkimos Beach has since been recognised by a number of Australia’s peak industry bodies as an exemplar residential development project. These awards include:

·       Winner of Global Lendlease Excellence and Innovation Award 2016 –‘Global Sustainability Award’.

·       UDIA Awards for Excellence 2016 – Winner of

·       ‘EnviroDevelopment Chairman’s Choice Award’.

·       UDIA Awards for Excellence 2017 – Winner of

·       ‘Residential Development over 250 Lots’.

·       Inaugural Winner of the UDIA Awards for Excellence 2017.

·       UDIA National Award 2018 – Winner of ‘Residential Development’ category.

·       The Property Council Innovation and Excellence Awards 2018 – Winner of ‘Best Masterplanned Community’.