Pacific Palm Beach ‘talk of the town’ because of controversial design

It was heralded as a building that “dissolves boundaries between sea and shore”. But to many locals, it looks more like a “jailhouse”. So what has gone wrong, asks Keith Woods.

A NEW development facing the ocean at Palm Beach has set tongues wagging.

According to local councillor Daphne McDonald, it is “the talk of the town”.

And it’s easy to see why. This column reckons Pacific Palm Beach on 23rd Ave is breathtaking. Breathtaking in its awfulness.

The company which developed it promised a building “with an architectural style that dissolves the boundaries between sea and shore”.

Many people question whether this has been delivered. Although housing luxury homes, the development has been compared to a bunker, a car park, and most popularly, a jailhouse.

This column was reminded of the old Gold Coast Hospital in Southport, which until its demolition, was probably the ugliest building on the Gold Coast. Architecture, like art, is in the eye of the beholder. But that particular title surely has a strong new contender in Pacific Palm Beach.

The Pacific Palm Beach development as seen from the beach.

The development seen from the Gold Coast Highway

Viewed from the sand, it is, in this column’s opinion, visual vandalism, a carbuncle of concrete on an otherwise perfect vista. Its grey, angular form seems brutally alien to its surroundings. It is like an inner-city office building, the sort of place you ache to flee at five o’clock. Not what you’d expect in a seaside scene.

But it is the view from the Gold Coast Highway that is most controversial. It is this aspect that invites the “bunker” comparisons. Minus the balconies of the shore side, what we are left with is a wall of concrete perforated by dark, narrow slits of windows which are reminiscent, in this column’s view, of the defensive openings on Medieval castles.

We are told by the development company that all of this has been delivered to us by “a team of world class architects”.

It is also true that the building’s “residences”, which cost from $1.9 million, have sold out. So someone must like it.

But it is far easier to find people who do not, with a protest outside the building last week organised by local community groups and attended by mayoral candidate Mona Hecke making clear the strength of feeling among many.

Angry Palm Beach residents are asking how council could have allowed such a confronting building to be constructed.

Cr McDonald claims that artists’ impressions supplied to council at the time of application did not reflect the finished form.

“It’s certainly not like the photos,” Cr McDonald told this column. “It’s not turned out like what the pictures show.”

An artists’ impression of Pacific Palm Beach.

The finished product.

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This column asked the Brisbane-based development company for its response to this claim, but they did not reply by deadline. However, it would appear from posts on the Pacific Palm View Facebook page that this is a suggestion they would dispute.

The building’s design also has a very different look and feel to others in the area, something that rankles with locals and Cr McDonald.

“I’ve always asked that we have designs that are unique to the area, that we get the beachside suburbs feel,” Cr McDonald said.

“It’s the laid-back beachside feel. You can see some of the old-type development that have taken that on board. But unfortunately with some of the new developments that are happening we are not seeing that and probably some of the designs are more suited to some of the capital cities like Brisbane or Sydney. But they’re certainly not designed for beachside suburbs.”

Cr McDonald also takes issue with the building’s bulk and lack of greenery. And she says she has been inundated with comments from unhappy Palm Beach residents.

“This is probably a building that I’ve had most comments about the look of it,” she told this column. “It’s a very, very bulky building.”

The Pacific Palm Beach development towers over neighbouring buildings.

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The construction of what so many regard as an eyesore goes to the heart of the debate about the City Plan and light rail.

Pacific Palm View was approved under delegated authority and locals fear, with considerable justification, that many more such developments will appear if the tram line is extended through Palm Beach.

This is a building that has surely rallied many more to the anti-light rail cause.

Whatever the outcome of the City Plan deliberations, the citizens of this city deserve a promise that developments which could be regarded as being at odds with their surroundings will have no easy route to approval.

This is no simple case of NIMBYism. The beach belongs to all of us, and the views of local residents must be heard.

It is not that there cannot be development - as this column has long argued, unless we want to continue clearing bush at a very real cost to native wildlife, there is little option but to build up in existing suburbs.

This column is also a big fan of the light rail.

But unless it is done in a sensible and sensitive way, we risk losing far more than we gain. Many more people will cry halt. And who could blame them?

If this city is to retain the character that makes it so special, in beachside suburbs especially, we need buildings with setbacks, greenery, a playful, colourful feel.

Buildings that scream Gold Coast, not East Berlin.