Sunshine Coast Council and its partners, SunCentral and Walker Corporation, are welcoming a new era for the Maroochydore City Centre, with amendments to its Development Scheme to reshape the vibrancy and attractiveness of the CBD now in place.
More than 150 jobs are expected to be created with civil works commencing in the first stage of the new Maroochydore city centre.
New roads, footpaths, cycleways, lighting, parks and landscaping will take shape in the civil construction works that will cost $25 million and take approximately 12 months to complete.
The Sunshine Coast is set to become the home of nimble businesses, tech-savvy Millennials and young families in a major transformation set to reinvent its leisurely seaside image, according to a new report by Australia’s leading demographer.
The report by Bernard Salt, The Activated City: Imagining the Sunshine Coast in 2040, found 550,000 people will be living in the region by 2040, attracted by its entrepreneurial spirit, ‘hipster’ culture and connectivity.
Mr Salt said direct flights from Maroochydore into Asia, expected from the expanded Sunshine Coast Airport from 2020, would see the region become as connected to Asian markets as it was to the rest of the country.
He said significant economic and social shifts triggered by the creation of the new CBD at Maroochydore, the expanded airport and the Sunshine Coast University Hospital will accelerate in the coming decades.
“The results will be a Sunshine Coast that is not just bigger, but also younger, more highly educated and entrepreneurial,” Mr Salt said.
“The Sunshine Coast is awakening from a long and cosy period of hibernation.
“The city is being ‘activated’ by investments in infrastructure such as its new hospital precinct and the building of an international airport runway.
“The development of an entirely new CBD in the heart of the Sunshine Coast at Maroochydore will provide a vital ecosystem in which business, as well as leisure and the arts, will thrive.”
Mr Salt said footloose businesses that can operate from any location would be attracted by the technology, lifestyle, cost and connectivity while university-educated Millennials would team up with Second Generation CEOs – baby boomers who retired to the Sunshine Coast and kicked off new start-up businesses in the fertile grounds of the region.
“Parents in the future will happily invest their lives in the community knowing their children won’t be forced to move elsewhere to pursue their dreams because, finally, the Sunshine Coast will have arrived,” Mr Salt said.
Mr Salt predicts that by 2040 the Sunshine Coast and its new CBD will have benefited from a range of new social and economic developments, including:
An influx of ‘footloose’ businesses able to relocate thanks to technological change and attracted by the Sunshine Coast’s enviable lifestyle and environment.
A diversification of the economy into sectors including technology, aviation, renewable energy and professional services.
New flight connections with major Asian-Pacific cities, which will boost exports, increase tourism and drive the growth of high-quality education and health services.
Growth of the already strong entrepreneurial sector, driven by ‘Second Generation CEOs’ – baby-boomer retirees still keen to put their money and skills to work.
An increase in ‘knowledge workers’ and tech-savvy young people, attracted by higher education expansion and the emergence of new start-ups.
The subsequent rise of a thriving ‘hipster’ culture and the emergence of the Sunshine Coast as a significant artistic and cultural hub.
A huge increase in population from around 350,000 today to 550,000 in 2040, with young families and children among the fastest-growing demographic groups.
To achieve this growth the Sunshine Coast will have to build the equivalent of a new suburb every 14 months and a new school every two years, as well as new infrastructure.
Sunshine Coast Mayor Mark Jamieson said the region was up to the challenge.
“We have always taken the view that we will shape the future, not simply react to it,” Mayor Jamieson said.
“Our Regional Economic Development Strategy sets out a bold but achievable plan to build a $33bn economy by 2033, with 100,000 new jobs in high-value industries, 20 per cent of our goods and services exported and household incomes above the Queensland average.
“The creation of an entirely new CBD at Maroochydore is one of the ways in which we are setting this new course for the Coast.
“Bernard Salt describes the new CBD as the ‘missing link’ that will transform the Coast and deliver jobs and growth for decades to come. He is absolutely right.”
SunCentral is driving the construction of the new CBD on a 53-hectare greenfield site in the heart of Maroochydore.
SunCentral CEO John Knaggs said the Activated City report justified the confidence business has already shown in the CBD project, which will ultimately create an estimated 30,000 new jobs.
“The vision of the future described by Bernard Salt is enthralling – but it is built on very realistic expectations of the success the Sunshine Coast has already enjoyed,” Mr Knaggs said.
“The first wave of private sector interest in the new CBD includes projects with a construction cost of more than $400m that would result in new job opportunities for local workers.
“Our beautiful region is evolving in ways that will enrich the lives of the whole community and the new CBD will be at the very heart of the Sunshine Coast’s exciting future.”
Maroochydore CBD Fast Facts
Background
SunCentral Maroochydore Pty Ltd was established by the Sunshine Coast Council in March 2015.
The 53-hectare site was declared a Priority Development Area by the State Government in July 2013.
The Council established SunCentral Maroochydore Pty Ltd to oversee development of the site.
The new city centre is needed to meet the demands of Australia’s fastest growing region.
It is located 10 minutes from Sunshine Coast Airport.
Economic and employment benefits
Creating 15,000 jobs by 2025 and more than 30,000 jobs by 2040.
Expected to value add more than $350 million to the state’s economy in the next five years.
Will provide an estimated $4.4 billion boost to the Sunshine Coast economy over the life of the project.
Project expected to provide an estimated $5.9 billion boost to the Queensland economy.
Urban design
Prime commercial office space, exclusive retail, exhibition, convention and entertainment facilities, a premium hotel and recreational spaces.
Approximately 40 per cent of the site will be parks, plazas and waterways.
A rail corridor into Maroochydore is already designated by the State Government.
Potential for light rail to connect Caloundra, Kawana and Mooloolaba with Maroochydore’s new CBD.
150,000m2 commercial gross floor area, 65,000m2 retail gross floor area and 2000 residential apartments.
Technology and environmental sustainability
High speed fibre optic digital connections.
A range of ‘smart city’ innovations such as smart lighting and signage and technology that assists parking, traffic management and provides real time information for public transport.
Australia’s first CBD-wide automated underground waste collection system.
The waste network of the future has arrived on the Sunshine Coast and is being prepared for installation so it can suck household rubbish underground, eliminating wheelie bins and garbage trucks.
In September last year Brisbane Times revealed that the new Maroochydore CBD being built on the Sunshine Coast would have a $21 million underground rubbish system where household and commercial waste would be "sucked" underground at 70 kilometres an hour through a 6.5-kilometre underground pipe network.
Last week about half the pipes arrived in Maroochydore to form the underground waste disposal network, Australia's first-ever underground waste disposal system. The rest arrives next month.
Similar schemes are already in place in Stockholm, Seoul, Barcelona, London, Singapore and Beijing and a large integrated waste and recycling scheme is being trialled in the Indian state of Gujarat.
The Sunshine Coast Council is progressively redeveloping a 53-hectare section of Maroochydore's central business district into a $350 million CBD called SunCentral to let underground facilities for the new Maroochydore city be installed.
Those new facilities include the underground waste network, which works using a massive vacuum system.
Envac Australia managing director Tony Kutra said the first shipment of the "Y-sections, bends and some straight sections" arrived in 20 shipping containers in Brisbane from South Korea.
"We know how important the first project in any country is," Mr Kutra said.
"All the feedback we get from residents and visitors to an area (where a system has been introduced) is that they no longer have waste trucks coming around, reversing signals and all of those truck movements associated with the collection of waste," he said.
Waste project manager Kate Broadbent said the pipes would begin to go underground in about six weeks after checks were done.
SunCentral Maroochydore CEO John Knaggs said public areas would have their own waste inlets, meaning new city streets would not see overflowing wheelie bins.
"Envac's technology can be installed because we are building on an undeveloped, greenfield site within an existing urban area – and that has many other benefits," Mr Knaggs said.
"For instance, we are also building a high-speed fibre optic network into the city's very foundations," he said.
"That will allow us to provide 'smart' signage, free Wi-Fi hotspots, real-time transport information, movement sensors and smart lighting."
Sunshine Coast mayor Mark Jamieson
said in practical terms it meant reduced cleaning costs – over time – less noise and congestion and fewer odours from waste sitting in wheelie bins.