Home of the Arts Gold Coast: HOTA’s redevelopment plans from arts tower to giant new theatre

The Home of the Arts (HOTA) is one of the Gold Coast’s crowning achievements but it’s quite different from the idea that was first pitched. SEE THE PLANS

The Gold Coast’s Home of the Arts (HOTA) has become one of the city’s proudest achievements in the past five years as it has dramatically transformed.

Much of the site looks unrecognisable from what it was just a handful of years ago when it was dominated by the Gold Coast City Council’s old headquarters, affectionately known as the beehive.

This week, the Bulletin revealed during its Future Gold Coast series that HOTA is set for a major expansion.

Early plans showing a Lyric theatre in the HOTA cultural precinct on the Gold Coast.

It will feature a new “world-class concert venue plus 4.5-star hotel and convention centre”.

The $240 million theatre, capable of hosting 1800, must be built to make a hotel and conference centre viable, the business case notes.

Investigations found “the hotel and conference centre need to be close together and that a conference centre would struggle without a hotel on site”.

It’s an exciting time for the arts and comes 10 years to the week after the council unveiled the original HOTA masterplan.

Winning concept for Gold Coast Cultural precinct by ARM Architecture

The 2013 plan was commissioned to replace the controversial shelved plan to demolish Evandale and create a giant floating arts precinct in the middle of the Nerang River.

The centrepiece was to be a 14-storey arts tower which was to rise over the site and house a museum, with bungee jumping from its roof.

It was affectionately dubbed the “fruit tingle tower”.

The plan was designed by Melbournes’s ARM Architecture, which won a design competition put on by the council.

Winning concept for Gold Coast Cultural precinct by ARM Architectur

The project had a $300m price tag and had a range of features, including:

*A new-look Arts Centre Gold Coast, which will double in size and feature a 1200-seat state-of-the-art theatre, a renovation to the existing theatre and a “black box theatre” that will open out to the river;

●* A “water play” park featuring a slide;

●* A sports area including a basketball court;

●* A spiral helix green bridge connecting the site to Chevron Island;

●* Outdoor art galleries and a massive amphitheatre;

● * Floating gardens;

●* Fine-dining restaurants;

●* Supertrees – new structural shade elements that act like parasols.

Mayor Tom Tate in 2013. Photo: Kit Wise

Mayor Tom Tate at the time said the plan would transform the precinct into a family zone.

“I imagine families – mum and dad, two kids, the mother-in-law and the cheeky cousin – will come to the cultural precinct for the day,” he told the Bulletin at the time.

“The daughter will go swimming and use the slide, the son will shoot some hoops, the parents will visit the touring Picasso show while the mother-in-law will go for coffee at one of the waterfront cafes.

“The cheeky cousin – he will be the one who uses the bungy jump.”

ARM director Howard Raggatt said the Gold Coast had the potential to become a postmodern city.

A graphic outlining the future stages of HOTA on the Gold Coast. The sections at the front show where a digital education facility could be built.

“You could not have something like this in Melbourne; this is the only place something like this could happen,” he said.

“The bungee jump proves that art is not just about high brow, this offers something for the whole family.

“There is an activity for everyone.”

While some elements of the proposal were criticised at the time, particularly the tower’s design, the response was largely positive.

The arts tower was shelved in favour of the $60m gallery which exists today, while the green bridge connecting Evandale to Chevron Island was eventually built, as was the amphitheatre.

Other elements are yet to be realised.