‘The World’ has come to the Towers
IT’S not often a shopping centre installs it’s own historical monument, but Charters Towers residents are used to Goldtower Central doing things differently.
For awhile now a giant steel globe has hang beside the road with tradies busily working away underneath.
Now, on December 2, the monument known as ‘The World’ has officially opened.
The World is the latest addition to Paul Mciver’s Goldtower Central - a commercial development officially opened in April 2022.
“The stone is engraved and handpainted in special gold paint from Germany. It’s not available in Australia and we had to import it ourselves. It’s the same paint they use on chapels,” Mr Mciver said.
“Someone asked what it cost me and I joked ‘it cost me the world’.”
Encouraging people to stay and shop in Charters
Towers is the main reason behind The World.
“Previously travellers just stopped for a quick shop to restock then they kept going east or west,” Mr Mciver said.
“Now they might stop and stay for two or three nights because we can offer so much.”
The World is a history monument, capturing important moments and figures from Charters Towers.
“At one point Charters Towers was the second largest town in Queensland,” Mr Mciver said.
“The residents called it ‘The World’ because so many nationalities were here and you could get anything you wanted... I think there is a lot of value in history.”
Goldtower Central is far from finished, with two more commercial buildings and a plaza area under construction.
Also under construction is a 5 million piece mosaic Mr Mciver describes as the largest ceramic tile mosaic in
Australia.
“The mosaics in Italy lasted thousands of years,” he said.
“I’m making everything to last and I hope in 100 years The World will still be here.”
Goldtower Central has brought big change to Charter Tower’s Queenton suburb.
“We faced a lot of resistance to the development in the beginning,” Mr Mciver said. “But we never gave up. We’ve bought Harvey Norman to town... people in the main street were worried they would lose business when we opened out here, but one owner told me business is actually up because people aren’t going to Townsville anymore.”
Mr Mciver said he hoped to have Goldtower Central entirely built in three years.
“I probably would’ve made more money if I did a development like this in Brisbane, but I didn’t see the challenge. It’s been a real hard slog to do this,” he said.