Retro motel glory days to live again
THEY were once the places to holiday on the Gold Coast but almost all have disappeared beneath a wave of highrise development.
Now local developer Theo Armenis is bringing the motel back with plans for a 1960s-themed 12-unit complex on the Gold Coast Highway at Mermaid Beach.
The three-storey Sunset Sands Hotel would occupy a site just north of Nobby Beach on a strip that still has a few of the ageing motels Mr Armenis is drawing inspi- ration from. If approved it would have the city’s first rooftop, glass-fronted, cantilevered swimming pool.
Mr Armenis, who filed his development application with the Gold Coast City Council this week, said he wanted to create something special.
“I worked closely with the designer to create something modern and contemporary with a retro flourish,” he said.
“I want to change the landscape and add something positive to the area and this project aims to pay tribute to the past while aiming for the future. It is a very Gold Coast neoclassical design.”
The site is currently occupied by a single-storey house and sits just metres from the proposed Gold Coast light rail extension.
The project will go before councillors later this year when it is expected to gain approval.
City planning boss Cameron Caldwell said he was impressed with the design and that it, and similar projects, would revive the highway strip.
“New and edgy products are good for tourism on the Gold Coast,” he said.
“We have seen renewed interest in beachside suburbs south of Broadbeach on the Gold Coast Highway and this area deserves new development and renewal.”
In the 1950s and 1960s the Gold Coast Highway became a mecca of small motels which dotted the arterial road and were built around large swimming pools.
Most featured up to 12 rooms and were created from cheap and basic post-war materials including asbestos, cement cladding, flat roofs and panelled construction.
By 2012, less than 40 of the original 85 remained and the number is understood to be slightly fewer now as a result of the development boom.
Among the most famous were Bernie Elsey’s Beachcomber, The Chevron Hotel and the El Dorado.
Most of the few remaining from that period are concentrated on the highway between Broadbeach and Burleigh Heads and at Labrador.