ENDING THE SPIT WARS
Integrated resorts, on and off again cruise ship terminals, 40-odd level towers ...
THE opening of Palazzo Versace in September 2000 was one of the most glamorous nights in the Gold Coast’s history.
It was the city’s first six-star hotel and marked a major turning point for The Spit.
In the past two weeks the Bulletin has delved into the history of The Spit over the past 50 years and the vast range of ambitious and frequently bizarre developments that were pitched.
Some, like Marina Mirage and Fisherman’s Wharf were built, while others, including a golf course and Indycar street circuit, were shot down.
This week concludes with a look at the 21st-century rush to develop the precinct and why none of the big-budget projects got off the ground.
Through the late 1990s and early 2000s there was a raft of new ideas, including building an amphitheatre in Doug Jennings Park, a maritime museum, a floating restaurant, a water park and swimming enclosure, gardens and waterfront restaurants and a lookout.
The southern end of The Spit around Marina Mirage would have featured three-bedroom waterfront villas, restaurants and cafes, a beach cultural centre, a community centre, an Aboriginal culture park, a plaza and a swimming lagoon, many of which would have been situated in Philip Park.
In 2003 the state government commissioned a feasibility study into a cruise ship terminal in response to various unsolicited proposals for The Spit, Wavebreak Island and on the ocean side.
Among those agitating for this development was a consortium led by former National Party state secretary Mike Evans.
It was this era of proposals that led to the creation of the Save Our Spit Alliance (SOSA), which has been at the forefront of opposition to development on The Spit since 2003.
The design put forward by Mr Evans was revealed in April 2005. It was a $1bn, 20-year masterplanned development that included a cruise ship terminal, superyacht facility, 500berth marina, a new bridge linking Southport to Main Beach and a hotel.
By February 2006, nine major consortiums, including Raptis Group, Sunland and Multiplex, had submitted expressions of interest for the project.
The Beattie government would shelve the project entirely in late 2006 ahead of the state election.
The sledgehammer blow of the global financial crisis in the late 2000s cooled the development industry and it wasn’t until the mid-2010s, the mayoralty of Tom Tate and the Campbell-newman state government that major new proposals were again considered.
In early 2014, developer ASF was named as the government’s “possible preferred proponent” and unveiled plans for a cruise ship terminal that would have included Doug Jennings Park and Wavebreak Island.
The highly controversial project sparked strong opposition, forcing ASF to redesign the project to remove the terminal from The Spit.
The project was terminated by the newly elected Labor government in 2015 after making an election commitment to protect the Broadwater.
However, it allowed ASF to pitch a new development.
In late 2016 the Sydneybased company unveiled its $3bn integrated resort complex – a five-tower mega project that included a casino on Crown land.
This too would be cancelled by the state government, with Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk saying in 2017 that public consultation showed the community did not want a casino or high-rises on the SeaWorld Drive land.
Meanwhile, Sunland, which had been successful with Palazzo Versace, came up against enormous resistance when it proposed its most ambitious project – the $600m twin-tower 44-storey Mariner precinct at Mariner’s Cove.
The Dame Zaha Hadid-designed towers were to have 370 apartments, offices, a boutique hotel, restaurants, an art museum and an aquarium.
It too was met with enormous resistance from the community and the company withdrew it from consideration.
Decades of development on The Spit as a political football largely came to an end with the state government, council and community development of a masterplan that locked in a hard three-storey height limit in the area.
In the past year, more than $500m worth of low-rise luxury developments have been unveiled.
While Mr Tate continues to push for a cruise ship terminal of Philip Park, there has been no political will from the state government to return to the wars over the future of The Spit.