Gold Coast Arena: ‘Innovative plans and ideas’ wanted to create 12,000-seat stadium
Build it, and they will come. And you’ll likely watch on in 2032 from the best seats in the house as the 12,000-plus crowd roars in joyous unison inside the Olympics stadium you helped make come true.
The official expressions-of-interest (EOI) process opens this week to partner with the City of Gold Coast to create the long-awaited Gold Coast Arena on a government-owned 4.5-hectare site surrounded by restaurants, bars and hotels.
The world-class indoor entertainment and sports facility is set to transform Carey Park, Southport, a small park about 10 minutes’ drive north of Surfers Paradise.
The arena, set to be highly accessible and well connected to all transportation, is located opposite Australia Fair shopping centre and across the road from Broadwater Parklands, a large park that attracts tourists and locals.
The arena will serve to host Brisbane 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games events and provide much-needed infrastructure to attract big-ticket music acts and sporting events to the city.
In 2023, even without a suitably large venue, the city’s live music sector generated close to $1 billion, according to Live Performance Australia.
This is expected to grow as the Gold Coast’s population of under-20s is projected to increase by almost 40 per cent by 2041.
The City of Gold Coast is “inviting serious players to the table” to design, build, finance, operate and maintain the exciting new venue.
Construction is expected to kick off in 2027, with arena doors to open in 2030.
The EOI process will be open to submissions until late November, with major national and international groups expected to submit tenders.
City of Gold Coast officials say the arena is one of the most exciting public-private partnership opportunities currently in play across Australia.
A wave of new and upgraded sporting venues is on the way in Queensland, alongside multipurpose infrastructure and an athletes’ village that is set to be transformed into permanent housing once the Games conclude. Critical infrastructure will be funded by federal and state government initiatives, including the $7.1 billion venue infrastructure program.
New infrastructure planned for the Olympics includes Brisbane Stadium, National Aquatic Centre and Brisbane Athletes Village at the site of the RNA Showgrounds.
In March, some of Queensland’s largest building companies welcomed the announcement of key venue locations for the Games, though they warned the original 11-year timeline had shrunk to just seven, giving little time to build key facilities.
Invest Gold Coast, a council body dedicated to supporting Australia’s fastest-growing city, says the Gold Coast Arena is projected to generate up to $2 billion in economic output, create over 6500 jobs, and inject $700 million into the region’s economy.
Chair Will Hodgman says the city hopes to attract innovative plans, and is “not shopping around for speculative interest.”
“The City is ready to compete for global capital and legacy investment,” Hodgman says. “We’re now at the point of execution … and we are inviting serious players to the table.”
The council has deliberately avoided over-specifying the scope of the tender to attract market-led innovation, he adds, with early interest registered from local and overseas consortia.
“This isn’t about just building a box with seats,” Hodgman says. “We’re talking about creating a privately run venue that will become an anchor point for the city’s Olympic legacy and support the growth in live event demand on the Gold Coast.
“We welcome innovative plans and ideas for the Gold Coast Arena. We’re looking to the future with this project and we want to work with a partner who is eager to create a legacy project.”
EOI submission details will be released on August 28, with registrations welcomed at: investgoldcoast.com/opportunities/gold-coast-arena
