Chinatown Mall Ready & Open
14 February, 2010
Lord Mayor Campbell Newman’s $8 million redevelopment of Chinatown Mall is complete.
The Lord Mayor and Councillor Prentice today officially opened the new-look mall to the public amidst Brisbane’s 2010 Chinese New Year Celebrations, for which Council chipped in $50,000.
Cr Prentice said she was excited to see Chinatown Mall finished after a number of unexpected issues dragged construction on longer-than-expected. He said he was confident local traders would now reap the rewards of a quality feng shui design.
“The minute we started digging up the Chinatown Mall it was like lifting the lid on a Pandora’s Box of problems,” Cr Prentice said.
“We had utilities companies who didn’t know where their pipes and cables were and when we did find them, they decided it was time to upgrade them. To make matters worse we had to smash through the notoriously hard ‘Brisbane Tuff’ rock to do it.
“But we’ve managed to get it finished and I think Chinatown Mall will again be a magnet for not only international tourists, but local diners as well.”
Cr Prentice said Council had delivered the upgrade without requiring local traders to make any contribution to the project and waived all outdoor dining fees for restaurants.
Cr Prentice said the new Chinatown Mall was designed by local firm Urbis and Chinese architects from Brisbane’s sister city Shenzhen, which is located just north of Hong Kong.
“We wanted an authentic mall and I thank the City of Shenzhen for sending their top architects to create something the Chinese community can be proud of, and that the rest of our community will enjoy visiting.”
The mall is split into three terraced zones – the Wickham St Zone (incorporating the Qin and Hang Dynasties), the Central Event and Dining Zone (incorporating the Tang and Song Dynasties) and the Ann St Zone (incorporating the Ming and Qing Dynasties) – which are designed to prevent good luck from running out into Wickham St.
It also features a new Ann St gate, new water feature, a shade structure in the middle of the mall, a new home for the commemorative bell and a large sculpture of a leaping carp.
In December 2008 the Lord Mayor announced a massive $8 million overhaul of the Chinatown Mall after it fell into disrepair during Labor’s 17 years in power.
Cr Newman said the Chinatown Mall was in such bad shape that the roofs of the four pagodas sitting above the Ann St entrance were rotten and had to be removed, along with the gates below, as they posed a serious risk to public safety.
The Carp statue measures over three metres in length and represents the ancient Chinese legend “The Carp leaps over the Dragon Gate”.
