In search of the sweet spot
Nothing off table for Southport
A new masterplan will be developed to revitalise the Gold Coast’s ailing CBD of Southport and nothing will be off the table – including a second casino for the Gold Coast.
Mayor Tom Tate intends to fund the new suburb blueprint in this year’s budget, with the initial plan to be delivered in early 2025.
He aims for a full masterplan ready by the beginning of 2026.
Among the key aspects it will deal with include relocating council’s headquarters on the existing site of Athol Patterson carpark, creating a legal and government precinct at the site of Mal Burke carpark and developing more hotels and residential accommodation within the city.
Mr Tate said he was open to all ideas.
“We will need to have this in the budget so we can do a proper masterplan with visions to put money aside for public consultation and my advice to the master planners is this – nothing should be off the table, including the global tourism hub,” he said.
“Now I believe there is a sweet spot for Southport, to make its move, to be a true CBD.
“It’s our CBD, we want to have the whole vision but we need to take the developers along with us so that all the planning is consistent and so we can build things that come.
“Once this master plan is done, Southport’s CBD will never look back and unlike Sydney’s CBD we are going to have night-time activation.
“To Southport property owners, I say brace yourselves, the value of your property is about to go up. It’s good for you, good for the city.”
One critical focus the masterplan is expected to address is the lack of development and the number of “bomb sites” littered throughout the suburb.
Developers and city leaders have long been disappointed by the lack of major projects completed in the decade since Southport was given Priority Development Area status by the state government in the hopes of kickstarting billions of dollars in major projects and jobs.
Instead, some developers gained council approval for development applications to lift the value of the site, before selling.
Mr Tate said he had regrets about the PDA.
“Hindsight dictates we should have done a masterplan back then when we did the PDA,” he said.
“At the time I thought the market would dictate the amount of development and investors would have fun with it but what actually happened was that once the land owners got an increase in the value of their sites without doing anything, they didn’t go ahead.”
The masterplan move has been welcomed by business leaders, as well as area councillor Brooke Patterson.
New Southport Chamber of Commerce president Trevor Bruger said he supported both a legal precinct and the council’s relocation, which he described as a “no-brainer”.
However, he warned more needed to be done to turn the suburb around.
“Ultimately these are all nice haves and help ups from Monday to Friday but they won’t necessarily do anything for Saturdays and Sundays,” he said.
“A lot of people work in Southport but do not necessarily live in Southport, so we would like to see developers incentivised to build here, provide affordable accommodation, as well as streetscaping and making it safe.
“We would love to see the council approach developers and landowners who have been land banking to either lease the sites as parklands or create some sort of Miami Marketta-style project to get people back in here.”
Ms Patterson, re-elected for a second term in March, said work was already underway on planning council’s return to Southport.
“A council staff accommodation strategy which considers the CBD as council’s new staff home is on track to be presented by the end of this year,” she said.
“The PDA that was brought in back in 2012 really had the opposite impact of what was intended.
“It was basically a supply model for a demand problem – you’ll never fix demand by increasing supply.
“There’s an overhaul being done on that PDA now and while it’s hard to take back what was given, we can tighten up areas.
“It’s likely we’ll see building levels reduced in some areas, like the Garden District, which could well mean more developments being built,” Ms Patterson said.
To Southport property owners, I say brace yourselves, the value of your property is about to go up. It’s good for you, good for the city
Tom Tate
Gold Coast Mayor