At The Avenue Maroochydore retirement community, we empower residents to shape, take ownership of and make decisions about the community in which they live.

Our residents organise their own busy village activity calendar so you will always have something to do! You can join a bus trip, visit a winery for the day with your new neighbours, try aqua aerobics, join the craft group, or meet in the community areas for a morning tea, a celebration  or game of billiards.

At The Avenue Maroochydore, you’ll have friends nearby who ‘get’ you and will be around when you need them.

Your family are always welcome to visit the village.

Noel and Valerie, originally New Zealand farmers, moved to Queensland’s Sunshine Coast before discovering The Avenue Maroochydore in 2019 and making it their forever home. “We recognised that Maroochydore was a great centre to call home and The Avenue a perfect place to make our home,’’ Valerie said.

“It’s the freedom of choice here that we love the most. We can do whatever we like – we can live privately, have family and friends visit, or join other residents to socialise. Our social life is very enjoyable and our friendship network has definitely increased since moving to The Avenue.

“All the facilities, recreation rooms and the open spaces are like an extension of our own apartment. My son put it well saying ‘Mum, it’s like you’ve got a small house and a big house but you only have to look after the small house’. Our kids are thrilled to bits that we are here.’’

The couple share a love of gardening and enjoy pottering in the courtyard garden of their ground-floor apartment, while Noel spends a lot of time in the village’s beautiful communal gardens, especially in the vegetable patch.

Angela was the youngest of 10 children born in a Prussian village. After her family fled to Germany, Angela achieved her dream of becoming a nurse, and later moved to Australia. She enjoyed a long and rewarding career as a community nurse specialising in palliative care before retiring to the Sunshine Coast where she now lives with her husband Fred at The Avenue Maroochydore.

“Fred and I have been married for 22 years. At that time we had been living in Sydney where Fred was working so hard and I thought to myself ‘if I want him for longer I have to take him out of here’ because the environment was so unhealthy.

“We would pass The Avenue Maroochydore every day and I became a bit jealous of the people who lived there. Fred would say: ‘isn’t that a beautiful building?’ So one day we went in just for a look and we never wanted to leave.

“Now I wouldn’t want to change a thing. I feel so safe so secure at The Avenue and it is so beautiful. I can walk two minutes to my church, walk five minutes to the beach or five minutes to Sunshine Plaza. Now that we are at The Avenue, we will never move.’’

A champion sportsman, Ted says the lifestyle he enjoys at The Avenue Maroochydore is helping in his goals to remain fit and healthy. The walls of Ted’s apartment are covered in framed memories of his impressive sporting career on the water and on the football field. “Water skiing was the highlight of my sporting life even though I did pretty well at surf club, rugby union and rugby league, won an A-grade premiership and coached Queensland Schoolboy sides,’’ he says.

Ted moved into his apartment at The Avenue Maroochydore from Brisbane a week before Christmas 2020 and is thriving in the coastal lifestyle. “I now have two tin hips after all the jumps from skiing because you land and hit the ramp around 60-70mph,’’ Ted says. “But I had wonderful results from surgery so I go to the gym at The Avenue for an hour-and-a-half four or five days a week, can do full squats with my new hips and in my apartment have dumb-bells and bar bells. I also do laps in our lovely magnesium pool and always feel good when I swim there. I go down to Cotton Tree and walk to Alexandra Headland and back most days and some days have a surf. I’ve joined three surf clubs around here.

“So now I’m here at The Avenue and I love it. I have no reason to ever leave. We have a lovely ‘happy hour’ every Friday night for the residents and I’ve made so many friends. Life is good.’’

Louise says some of her friends were surprised by her decision to move into a retirement village. “In the end I turned it into a bit of a joke, saying ‘I know you are shocked and can’t believe it as I am way too young to go into a retirement village’. But seriously moving to The Avenue Maroochydore has been the best decision.

“It’s important to make the move before you are in an emergency situation as then you’ve left it too late and your options are limited. I look at other people and think ‘there’s no need to stay living in a house on your own’. But you’ve got to organise yourself and paddle your own canoe. I’ve done it probably earlier than most but I realised I had to get myself organised to make sure as the years progressed that I have lots of social contact and that’s why I’ve done it. I didn’t see the point of taking a detour into just a residential apartment. My apartment at The Avenue is brand new and I’ve never lived in a brand new home. So I decided I was coming right now!

“I spent a long time investigating retirement living options but I kept coming back to The Avenue. One of the things I like most is it’s still part of the wider community, whereas a lot of the over-50 lifestyle villages I looked at were in semi-industrial areas around the periphery of built-up areas. I felt those other villages were separated from everything and I didn’t like that feeling at all.

“When I was a deposit holder I’d pop in about once a month or so to the regular ‘happy hour’ events at the village so I got to know everybody and they would ask ‘Louise when are you moving in?’ So when I actually made the move it didn’t feel big – I was moving somewhere I already knew. Now it feels like I’ve always been here. I absolutely have no regrets.

“Before I moved in during February 2021 the border with New South Wales was shut because of Covid and my son couldn’t come up for Christmas. Because I already knew other residents here I said  to one ‘I’m an orphan for Christmas can I come to The Avenue – I can bring the pudding.’ So I spent Christmas Day here and it really re-inforced my decision to move.’’

Ian and Karen said their adult children strongly supported their decision to move to The Avenue Maroochydore. “Our children began encouraging us to consider moving to a retirement community when we were in our late 60s. They both got onto us about the need to get out of our big house, yet close to a high-care facility, and The Avenue fitted the bill. Both children pushed us but you really need to make the decision yourselves. They continue to strongly support our move.’’

Ian said the location was a major factor in their eventual decision to move to The Avenue. “The site in downtown Maroochydore gives us easy access to Sunshine Plaza, restaurants and coffee shops, a range of services and great areas to walk. We couldn’t have done better than this location and it will become more important as we age.

“We also enjoy being part of a community of retirees, having people to talk to and participating in activities and events. Our friendship network has grown and we expect it to expand further as new residents join the community.

“If you are unsure about moving to The Avenue, I’d suggest thinking about how much it will suit your lifestyle and family connections, not just in the immediate future but as you age.’’