Repairing the Bruce Bishop car park in Surfers Paradise will cost ratepayers up to $50m

A bombshell report has revealed the Bruce Bishop car park in Surfers Paradise will cost ratepayers a massive amount to fix.

The Bruce Bishop car park in Surfers Paradise will cost ratepayers up to $50 million to fix, it can be revealed.

The repair bill will be a bombshell for city councillors who in January — after talks collapsed with a preferred tender — did not proceed to contract and terminated the sale.

Future costs identified in an asset management report, not made public, totalled $3.4 million.

These included security, signage, lighting, fire system, stormwater drainage and structural components “to be funded over the next 10 years”.

But councillors also asked CEO Tim Baker to provide a full profit and loss statement for the six years from 2016, inclusive of an engineer’s dilapidation report along with associated capital costs.

Councillors confused about earlier reports wanted to have a “clear understanding of the financial performance and the current condition of the asset”.

A source said: “It will cost $25 million in the first five years and $50 million in the first 15. The (new) report is about how much money is needed to make it safe and fully operational.”

Repair works underway at the Bruce Bishop car park in Surfers Paradise.

A council insider, backing the costs, added: “We know there is concrete cancer. There is lime leaching of the walls. It’s because we haven’t spent a cent in the last 20 years because we were going to sell it.”

Meanwhile, a $50 million offer from a private company sits on the table with councillors to make a decision in the next few weeks after being briefed by Mr Baker.

A City spokesperson confirmed council would consider a report on the unsolicited offer to purchase the Bruce Bishop carpark at its next meeting.

A separate report will be presented to council by the end of the year which considers the ongoing maintenance of the asset.

Fencing showing repair works underway on one level of the Bruce Bishop car park in Surfers Paradise.

Asked about the repair costs, the spokesperson replied: “The final costs of long-term maintenance are yet to be confirmed but will be considered in the report to council by the end of the year.”

The Bulletin asked if councillors decided to accept the $50 million offer, would they need to reverse the previous resolution, and then open up the tender for all offers and appoint a probity officer.

“Given the current resolution to retain the asset, if Council wished to reconsider this position and dispose of the asset a further resolution would be required. An appropriate method of disposal would then need to be determined by Council in accordance with the requirements of the Local Government Act,” the spokesperson said.

But sources suggest the bombshell repair bill is unlikely to see councillors, in the lead-up to next year’s poll, to reverse any decision and move to sell the asset.

Some councillors are determined to stand by their decision to retain the asset along with the Surfers Paradise Transit Centre which could be transformed into a Town Hall-style entertainment centre.

“It’s a bit of land we will never get back again,” a councillor said.

“The big thing with the Transit Centre is we did nothing with it for so long. You let an asset go to rot and ruin because you are going to sell it.

“We need to get serious in this space. What is the long-term future need for the city.”

Renders of a Gold Coast City Council proposal to redevelop the Surfers Paradise Transit Centre into a town hall style venue

A report in 2016 showed the council was warned at least two years before a woman was trapped by a falling concrete slab that its ageing central Surfers Paradise car park had serious structural defects.

Budget documents showed the council in 2014-15 was planning “concrete cancer rectification works” with the testing to be conducted “over a number of years” at the Bruce Bishop car park.

The Bulletin, at the time, was not suggesting concrete cancer contributed to the accident, only highlighting the carpark’s structural issues.

The carpark was mentioned in a report as an “infrastructure risk” because its concrete form had been deteriorating.

Before an earlier sale fell through in 2020, ratepayers have been forced to fork out more than $3.9m in maintenance fees and upgrades to the structure and Neal Shannon Park on its roof since mid-2018.

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