Weekend flashback: How the Gold Coast’s many shopping centres have changed from 1968-2016
GOLD Coasters have had a love affair with shopping for more than 50 years. Andrew Potts looks back at how the Glitter Strip’s shopping centres have changed.
History
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GOLD Coasters have had a love affair with shopping for more than 50 years.
As Australia Fair starts its $25 million upgrade, Andrew Potts looks back at how trends have changed for shoppers chasing a bargain.
The Paradise Centre and The Mark
NIGHTCLUBS were few and far between in Surfers Paradise in the early 1980s. Instead it was largely an area for the family and shopping for the locals.
Sure, famed nightspots like Twains and the Bombay Rock were entertaining audiences with the city’s hottest dance floor and top music acts like Midnight Oil and the Divinyls, but wall-to-wall clubs were yet to emerge.
At the dawn of the 1980s, The Mark was one of the city’s hottest shopping locations and also home of one of the Gold Coast’s first video shops.
Groceries and other daily essentials were all available in the Orchid Ave complex, which neighboured the new Paradise Centre.
The shopping centre, the brainchild of Eddie Kornhauser, opened in 1981 with the Grundys entertainment centre and its famous heart-shaped logo.
The international food court, rides and restaurants were a sign of things to come and Jim Cavill’s old Surfers Paradise Hotel was demolished to make way for stage two.
Cavill Mall was heavily redeveloped again in the early 1990s, getting rid of its brick surface, along with the Grundys slides.
Robina Town Centre
ROBINA is one of the Gold Coast busiest suburbs today and, at the heart of it, is one of the country’s largest shopping complexes.
It is a far cry from the original version of the town centre which opened in April 1996.
Original features were its clock tower courtyard, eight-theatre cinema, bubble jet court and small food court which looked over the lake.
Another popular early feature was its famous yellow hot air balloon, giving people a birds’ eye view of the developing Robina.
During the late 1990s you could even hit golf balls into the lake, but by the mid-2000s the centre’s traffic had fallen behind rival Pacific Fair, prompting a $390 million redevelopment in 2006.
The lake was drained and enlarged, the clock tower removed, the courtyard and open-air avenues roofed and the lakeside promenade created.
The new-look Robina was opened in 2009.
Sundale
THE grandfather of shopping on the Gold Coast, Sundale Shopping Centre was built on the banks of the Nerang River in late 1968.
It featured everything from a Big W, a Woolworths and a cinema as well as a centre stage for fashion parades.
Among its most interesting features was a radio booth for station 4GG.
Sundale was a popular location throughout its heyday of the 1970s and early 1980s when it hosted live performances by Graham Kennedy, Bryan Brown, Lucky Grills and the cast of The Sullivans.
It closed in 1990 and its empty shell was demolished in 2003.
Meriton’s Sundale tower now stands on the site.
Australia Fair
SOUTHPORT’S famous centre began life as Scarborough Fair in 1983 in what is now called Australia Fair Metro, its western wing.
It had just 40 shops including a Franklins and toy shop, with action figures from that year’s cinematic release of Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi.
In 1984, the complex expanded to the eastern side of Scarborough St with its now famous tower.
It doubled in size in 1989, forcing the demolition of houses and historic Pacific Hotel.
The expansion took the centre to the new Nerang St Mall.
Renamed Australia Fair, the centre’s high-end facilities led to the demise of the ageing Sundale Shopping Centre.
A six-theatre cinema opened in 1993.
The original Scarborough Fair site was redeveloped from 2014 to become Australia Fair Metro.
Pacific Fair
IT just received a $670 million redevelopment but Pacific Fair began life as a $17 million project in May 1976. On August 23, 1977, Pacific Fair opened its doors.
Among the 96 specialty shops on opening day were then-major department store McDonnell & East, and the still trading Coles and Kmart.
Pacific Fair received its first expansion in 1982 when Myer moved in to become one of the city’s anchor tenants along with 32 new speciality stores and an expanded Coles.
To greet the 1990s, Pacific Fair’s then-owners launched a major expansion and update of its facilities.
The five-stage process drastically altered the appearance of the centre, which gained its famous pink facade during the work.
The features included a new Myer complete with multistorey roof-to-floor waterfalls, a fresh-food market precinct and California Ave, a US-style shopping area.
McDonnell & East bowed out in 1994, replaced by Target and Toys R Us, just three years before the centre cemented its hold as the most prominent shopping centre in the city with the addition of a 12-theatre cinema.
And the expansions continued with a 14,000sq m Daimaru Japanese department store opened in 1998.
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