DOUBLE OR NOTHING
Mayor’s gamble to resurrect casino and avert jobs bust
THIS WILL BE A CATALYST FOR THE CBD, A GAME CHANGER, IT WILL UNLOCK OTHER DEVELOPMENT SITES MAYOR TOM TATE
MAYOR Tom Tate is urging the State Government to back his Plan B for a mega casino resort to supercharge development and jobs.
Mayor Tate said his vision for a casino, hotels, restaurants, bars, theatre and retail on a 6.7ha site in central Southport could rival casino giant Crown’s Melbourne entertainment precinct and was critical for growth after April’s Commonwealth Games.
City leaders fear a post-Games jobs slump after the State Government three weeks ago terminated ASF’s five-tower resort on the southern Spit and its estimated 13,000 jobs. Cr Tate yesterday said he’d been working on Plan B since that announcement.
Hours after returning from China to spruik the city, he said he had been inundated with calls from spooked international investors over the ASF axing.
The controversial decision came after four years as government’s preferred proponent.
He unveiled his new plan to almost unanimous support from councillors in a secret briefing at Gold Coast Airport two weeks ago. He wrote to Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk the next day on August 8, suggesting she gauge public support and call for tenders.
“This will be a catalyst for the CBD, a game changer, it will unlock other development sites,” Cr Tate said, adding it was bigger than ASF’s Spit proposal and would create 10,000 jobs at a conservative estimate.
“It will rival Melbourne’s Crown as a preferred integrated resort. Let’s take this to the community and see if they are supportive of the vision to be world class and fill the potential job void post the Games.”
The site, in council’s Priority Development Area with no restriction on tower height or density, ticked all the boxes with two tram stops and no environmental concerns, he said.
“The site is superior to The Spit. The State can approve it tomorrow and there will be even more proponents interested in this site.”
Cr Tate said he would support an approach to ASF given they already owned a Scarborough St site.
Premier Palaszczuk would look a “champion” if she pursued it: “I don’t even care if she came out and said she was thinking of doing it all along.
“I’d say to her, ‘this time you have learned what not to do so put a tender process in place that’s clear and succinct’.”
The earmarked site is bordered by the Gold Coast Highway, Queen St and Scarborough St. It includes council’s 419-bay Carey Park carpark which would be retained in council ownership under any redevelopment.
He admitted the Southport Bowls and neighbouring Queens Park tennis clubs would need relocation and while such community hubs were “dear to my heart, you have to look at the overall picture of 10,000 jobs”.
The tennis club would potentially move to an expanded Pizzey Park at Miami or Helensvale Golf Club. The bowls club would go across the highway to a site fronting the Broadwater.
Cr Tate blasted Southport councillor Dawn Crichlow, who didn’t make his briefing, for yesterday criticising his plan.
“For someone to critique it after they didn’t hear the proposal is akin to someone critiquing a movie and they didn’t see the trailer. All they saw was the cast and said ‘Nah’.
“It’s disrespectful to the 12 councillors who turned up and voted for it.”
Cr Bob La Castra also didn’t make the briefing but was understood to be supportive.
It would take 18 months for site planning to be done before any construction in 2020-21.
“Let’s get people excited, get people talking and demand it.”
ASF director Louis Chien said with The Spit development gone, his consortium still believed in the benefit its project would offer the Gold Coast community.
The land proposed for the resort that is owned by the State Government has occupants on long-term leases.
If the resort went ahead, the State would earn a significant revenue from both land taxes as well as revenue from the casino itself.