Grocon's $450m Vision splendid

MELBOURNE builder Grocon has won the $450 million construction contract for Austcorp Ltd's 79-storey Vision tower in the Brisbane CBD.

Austcorp executive chairman Trevor Chappell said yesterday that negotiations with Grocon were being finalised.

Grocon's experience in building Melbourne's 92-storey Eureka Tower was a key factor in the firm winning the job, he said.

It will be the first time the Grollo family company Grocon had built anything in Brisbane.

Grocon had advised Austcorp throughout Vision's design and approval phases, Mr Chappell said.

Austcorp Queensland manager Kerry Spencer, said Grocon was not taking equity in Vision and the soon-to-be-signed deal would be a straight construction contract.

Grocon engineering general manager David Emery said the company specialised in tall towers.

'We have built six of the 10 tallest buildings in Australia ... so we are looking forward to building the tallest one in Brisbane,' he said.

Grocon first branched out of Melbourne into Sydney with its construction of Governor Phillip Tower in the early 1990s.

'That was the business plan model, to move interstate on the back of a large project, and Vision fits that same mould,' he said.

The $900 million Vision will "