Paul Weston: What the Gold Coast cultural precinct will mean to you and your kids

GOLD Coast residents are about to invest in a large piece of concrete. This is not the pier on The Spit. It’s the cultural precinct, which poses the bigger question of what will happen when we give this city a heart.

GOLD Coast residents are about to invest in a large piece of concrete.

This is not the pier on The Spit. It’s the cultural precinct, which poses the bigger question of what will happen when we give this city a heart.

The most impressive speech at the Evandale council chambers this week was not during the tense debate among councillors either passionately for or against the cruise ship terminal.

Earlier in a special budget committee, council strategic adviser for arts and culture Robyn Archer eloquently explained what a cultural precinct will mean for a city renowned for its nightclubs and theme parks.

Artist impressions of the new amphitheatre as part of the Gold Coast’s cultural precinct.

She briefly wandered back to her home town of Adelaide, when folk clubs were starting and theatre companies opening up in city which back then in the 1970s had just a few thousand residents more than the Coast today.

Along with the freshly started Adelaide festival, it was the perfect preparation for her first break, heading to London where she gained international acclaim as an artist.

Ms Robyn Archer at Evandale which will be transformed for the cultural precinct. Picture Mike Batterham

The Coast is in a similar place and time. You sense she feels the same groove as a teenager.

“There are going to be beautiful buildings, it’s going to be a terrific precinct. It’s got everything this site. It’s going to be great,” Ms Archer told councillors.

“But unless we actually properly fund the things that go on inside it will be an empty place and none of us want that.”

As ratepayers funding it, what do we really know about this cultural precinct?

The amphitheatre, which can fit up to 5000 people and is being built where the old beehive building once stood, will be grassed and ready by December.

Mayor Tom Tate overseeing work at the cultural precinct. Picture: John Gass

Walking out the front of the council chambers, to your right, you will see an arts tower - not the much publicised “fruit tingle” which could appear later - but a less controversial structure.

The tower and a Green Bridge linking Chevron Island should be ready by 2020-21 at a cost of around $120 million.

The controversial fruit tingle tower is slated to be built in later stages of the project

The pitch by Ms Archer to councillors was to tick off more funding now, to prevent a repeat of the farce when Jeff Kennett opened empty arts buildings on becoming Victorian Premier.

Art was not about privilege, its depth was in community, helping the disabled, promoting indigenous culture and ultimately engaging a young criminal who stops reoffending.

“In Federation Square now in Melbourne, it’s not just arts stuff. If you want to protest you go to Federation Square,” Ms Archer said.

Workers at the cultural precinct site which will have Surfers Paradise in the backdrop. Picture: John Gass

“If you want to graduate, you go to there. If you want to cheer and celebrate a sports team or an arts event you go to Federation Square. The Gold Coast has lacked up until now one of those centrally unifying places, and this is what we want the cultural precinct to do.”

Artist impressions of the redevelopment of the Gold Coast Cultural Precinct at Evandale

She briefly mentioned Manchester, of the vigil, how a song from the heart of that city united all in grief after the terrorist attack. “This is the moment that allows people to grieve. This is the central social role of the arts. People on the Gold Coast don’t have that kind of place but with this they certainly will.”

For the first time, next year’s Commonwealth Games and its legacy with a festival and funded arts program made some sense of the spending on bricks and mortar.