Missing Heart: Why The Gold Coast Needs a CBD

It is the missing piece of the Gold Coast’s urban puzzle. Somewhere along the way to becoming Australia’s sixth largest city—with a population forecast to reach 1 million within 15 years—it has been left without a definitive CBD. Or, at least, nowhere truly identifiable as downtown Gold Coast. But a renewed push is under way for Southport—historically the city's original business and town centre—to once-and-for-all realise its full potential. And one of Australia’s biggest privately-owned development companies, renowned for its visionary placemaking and precinct-scale urban transformations, has signalled it is ready to lend a hand. As the Gold Coast stands on the cusp of a transformative moment in its urban evolution, Walker Corporation chief executive and managing director David Gallant sees “big opportunities” ahead. To seize the moment, he says, a substantive urban core or CBD is crucial to the city’s next phase of economic growth. “The Gold Coast could really do with a city centre … a CBD presence of scale and size would be terrific for the region,” he tells The Urban Developer . “And we’ve done a few of those—so we’d definitely be putting our hand up if the Gold Coast was out in the market, looking for what might be their future for a city CBD. “We take a long-term view. So we're always looking around where might be the next growth location or corridor.” Unlike many cities, where urban growth occurs outwards in concentric rings from a well-defined central business district, the Gold Coast has developed in a linear strip-like pattern of interconnected beachside settlements shaped by its geography. ▲ Walker managing director David Gallant with Powerhouse chief executive Lisa Havilah during a tour of the Powerhouse Parramatta site in Sydney’s west. As a result, it has led to a fragmented commercial landscape—with ongoing rivalry particularly between Southport and Robina, the latter regarded by some as the city’s “alternative CBD”. In recent weeks, however, the strategic focus on finally cementing Southport as the city’s undisputed CBD has regained momentum with Gold Coast mayor Tom Tate declaring “everything is on the table”. Most notably, the call has been put out to global investors to join a public-private partnership to deliver the 12,000-seat Gold Coast Arena at Southport’s Carey Park, opposite Australia Fair shopping centre. As a major catalyst project, it is touted the arena will stimulate investment and development by drawing “the eyes of the world” and more business and people into Southport. “The aim is to unlock the potential for Southport as both a CBD and entertainment destination,’’ Tate has said. Southport councillor Brooke Patterson says the Queensland Government’s declaration of the Southport CBD and its surrounds as a Priority Development Area 12 years ago had backfired and led to landbanking rather than delivering on its promise of a “definitive centre for commerce”. “The PDA has not worked and it will be revised,” she said outside a council meeting in July. Significantly, in a bid to re-activate the precinct’s so-called undeveloped “bomb sites” for urban renewal and break a decade of stalled development, the City of Gold Coast Council is now preparing a raft of planning changes—including cutting the currency period of development approvals from five years to just three years. “The City is committed to getting Southport to where it should be,” Patterson said. “Southport’s potential will be realised.” ▲ A concept rendering of the Gold Coast Arena planned for a site at Southport. As well, the council has given its investment and economic development agency Invest Gold Coast the task of developing an Investment Drivers Plan that will include a focus on getting landowners of long dormant sites to commence their approved developments. Gallant underscores the strategic imperative of creating a viable and meaningful Gold Coast CBD and its potential to reshape the city’s economic landscape by turning the commuter tide. “How many people a day leave the Gold Coast to go up the M1 to work in Brisbane? … the city needs a CBD and, with ASX-listed companies that need good workplaces everywhere, if you build the quality they will come.” But well-designed and sustainable CBDs are more than just about creating office spaces, they are about developing a holistic urban ecosystem in which people can live, work and play. Gallant says the Brisbane 2032 Olympics provides a unique catalyst for such an urban transformation on the Gold Coast and Southport “is a great location for a CBD”. “The mayor and the council are doing a terrific job in having a long-term vision for the region and for everyone it’s sort of watch this space … but I think with the Olympics coming on, the Gold Coast’s time is now to start planning for what a CBD centre might be.” North of Brisbane, Walker Corporation is a key partner with the Sunshine Coast Council in the $4-billion Maroochydore City Centre project, where it has recently topped out on the city’s most sustainable office building, at 50 First Avenue, and also is developing a twin tower mixed-use development. “We certainly are big in the precinct game,” Gallant says. “Our biggest precincts are about 15,000 dwellings, five shopping centres, six schools, and the smaller ones are 3000 to 4000 apartments. So they’re all large and we’ve certainly also got some big commercial precincts.” But he says critical to the success of such projects is having a “shared vision” with local government and state authorities. ▲ Gallant, with Kapitol Group’s Luke Wade, during a panel discussion at Urbanity-25 on the Gold Coast last month. Also among the projects on Walker Corporation's current workbook is the Blacktown Quarter precinct in Sydney’s west, its second office tower in Adelaide’s Festival Plaza precinct as well as the Riverlea masterplanned community in the city’s northern suburbs. “But over the next decade, Queensland—just like in the State of Origin—is going to be hard to beat,” Gallant says. “Never underestimate a Queenslander. I think what the Queensland Government is doing with the Olympics is going to be very good for the state.” Speaking at The Urban Developer’s flagship Urbanity-25 conference on the Gold Coast last month, Gallant said since the company’s billionaire founder Lang Walker, 78, died in January of last year it had been buiness-as-usual and he would have expected nothing less. “He did leave a big pipeline of work going forward. I think that was definitely one of his goals...having a stream of work that would enable the team to grow that. “Lang loved long-term projects,” Gallant says. “He loved doing those big precincts that, over time, would evolve into a great place. “He became quite talented in that area because he was the last of the privates that could do a project of that scale, but also take on the risk and have the vision of what that precinct could look like. “And the more he heard everybody talking about the difficulties, the more excited he got about the opportunities.” Gallant adds: “He was a big part of our lives. The management team, the three of us, had been with Lang for 30 years. We spoke to him 5 to 10 times a day. He was an incredible teacher and a good listener.” In a sense, Gallant says, it is like he is still there listening and guiding them. “We often do say to ourselves, ‘what would Lang be thinking?’ or what would Lang do now?’”

Missing Heart: Why The Gold Coast Needs a CBD

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