TINGLE IN THE BIN-GLE
WHY MAYOR’S AXING FRUITY TOWER PLAN
A GIANT colourful “art tower” set to become the centrepiece of the Gold Coast’s Home of the Arts (HOTA) has been dumped.
Gold Coast City Council staff developing the third and final stage of the city’s cultural precinct have removed the proposed high-rise from its plan after it was determined to no longer be necessary.
Mayor Tom Tate said the next stage – currently unfunded – won’t need the giant colourful “fruit tingle” tower to become an international icon, vowing the project will offer “the biggest cultural explosion not just in the city’s history but in the history of culture in Australia”.
“It will be a slap in the face for the people in Melbourne
who used to come up to me and say ‘the Gold Coast is sun, sand and surf but I can’t live there because it’s a cultural desert’,” he said.
“I say we are a desert no more, there is a cultural revolution happening here, with the final stage to feature an expansion and refurbishment of the existing arts centre.
“It sounds mundane but I know already that it will be the biggest wow factor of them all, I can guarantee it.”
It comes just a week after it was revealed the operating cost of HOTA would top $20m this financial year and increase to $32m in 2021-22.
Details of HOTA’s final stage are expected to be unveiled in coming months, once council staff complete the next round of designs.
It is expected to see the existing arts centre building’s
exterior revamped with a similar colour pattern as that featured on the $60m art gallery tower, which is due to open in April.
A giant public plaza at the front of the complex is also tipped.
Cr Tate was tight-lipped about what surprises will be included in the new arts centre but revealed there would be a new focus on a hi-tech “dig” akin to the futuristic
technology featured in series Star Trek.
“I can tell you one element: there will be a mix of the latest digital technology which will immerse all your senses when you enter its halls,” he said.
“It’s like Star Trek and its holodeck – this is going to be the holodeck on steroids
“Those Melburnians won’t be able to help themselves and will come up and check out our culture. It’s more outrageous, vibrant.
“It’s like the Gold Coast is Versace and everything else is off the rack.”
The council unveiled its $300m cultural precinct masterplan in November 2013, with the 14-storey art tower, complete with its own rooftop bungee-jump platform, as the heart of the newlook Evandale. television
It was initially expected to be built in time for the 2018 Commonwealth Games but was one of many projects put off because council was forced to bear a greater portion of the event’s costs.
Cr Tate said the new-look arts centre would otherwise stick closely to the original 2013 plan, which included the 1980s-era building doubling in size and featuring a 1200-seat state-of-the-art theatre.
The first stage of HOTA – its amphitheatre – was completed in 2018, while stage two includes the recently opened “green” pedestrian bridge and the art gallery.
The first year’s program at the gallery would feature a mixture of local artists as well as selections from one of the world’s foremost art collections.